Music has been touching the hearts of people for thousands of years. The lyrics, rhythms, and beats have brought people who have the same taste together and have created memorable experiences. It has grown from using objects to create sound and a simple means to communicate emotion to now being streamed through apps to billions of people, two of these main streaming services being Spotify and Apple Music. Both of these streaming services offer a unique service at the end of the year that excites many students.
During late November to early December, Spotify Music has been coming out with an annual report that summarizes the music a user had listened to over the year and all of their top artists, songs, and genres. This has been going on since 2013, first named “Year in Review”, but since 2016, it has been coined the infamous “Spotify Wrapped.” As of recently, Apple Music has created a very similar data report, launching in 2019, deemed “Apple Music Replay.” Although they share some similar features, they also have differences and students clearly have a favorite.
Spotify Wrapped is more visually appealing than Apple Music Replay. While also offering unique data for users. It shows information like your peak listening month for each of your top artists, an exclusive message from your number one artist, a place in the world that has the most similar taste to you, and more.
“What I like most about Spotify Wrapped is that it plays different music as I go through it. It’s like an experience with a greatly designed interface that I get to enjoy,” stated Isabella Dreyfuss, sophomore.
Although Spotify might have been first to generate the yearly recap, Apple offers weekly listening updates for their users. In order to access this type of music data for Spotify, users have to find a third-party service and track it separately from the app.
“I like Apple Music more because it offers the feature to see if you are a top 100 listener for an artist. It also lets you look at stats from previous years and not just the current year,” said sophomore, Amanda Robins.
Students also say that the shareability features on Spotify Wrapped are better compared to Apple. Spotify offers different colored backgrounds to share stats with friends. It can automatically be shared to iMessage, Instagram stories, etc.
“I prefer Spotify Wrapped because I overall prefer the app over Apple Music. My favorite part about it was that I can see all of my most-liked artists of the year and compare it with all of my friends. One thing I don’t really like is that my report contains music from the beginning of the year so it doesn’t really reflect the same as my taste now,” said freshman Morgan Patrick.
These services are fun and thrilling to use, but it isn’t all about comparing who listened to more music and who is the better fan. Just because stats say you listened to less music than your friend doesn’t make your love for music any smaller than theirs. These apps are created to let everyone enjoy listening to what they are passionate about. Yes, Wrapped is an amazing feature to look forward to, but it isn’t all that the app is about; don’t let it change the music you listen to in order to appear cooler and trendier.
Ultimately, both features allow users to discover their music favorites and reflect on their year of listening. Whether you are a Spotify or Apple fan, both reviews are an eye-opening experience to enjoy at the end of the year.