Spotify unwrapped this year’s Wrapped yesterday, once again proving that the streaming firm commoditising fan data to drive free organic marketing for its product is something that people seemingly never get tired of.
This year sees Spotify assign users a ‘Sound Town’, as well as creating a wide range of frankly batshit genres, presumably designed to drive additional sharing on social media as people say “my top genre is Char Sui Judder” or “my daughter has apparently been listening to lots of Cow Poke Grindcore - should I be worried?” We made those genres up obviously. Or did we?
Alongside the huge free marketing boost that Spotify Wrapped brings the company via social media - with #SpotifyWrapped once again trending on key platforms - it also delivers lots of additional free promo from lazy journalists desperately scrabbling around for a story to fill the near-to-Christmas void.
As a journalist desperately scrabbling around to fill the near-to-Christmas void, I fully endorse Spotify’s generous gift to the world. Not least their generous geographical gift in the form of these ‘Sound Towns’.
A ‘Sound Town’ is a town or city selected based on what music a user has streamed - presumably the town where the average resident has similar listening habits. My assigned town is a mere 37 miles from where I grew up. That definitely says… something. I’m not entirely sure what, but I’m pretty sure it’s not good.
There’s lots of other Wrapped-related stuff on Spotify’s website, including the top five most streamed tracks in various countries around the world, accessible via an almost-interactive globe.
So if you want to waste some time today, why not use this website to pick a random country and then see what the most streamed tracks are in that place. Although, doing so mainly highlights how many countries are missing from Spotify’s stats map.
Anyway, given Spotify likes to add some new features to Wrapped each year, maybe in 2024 it could include a personalised list of your favourite emerging artists who have been demonetised by the platform. Who knows?