I look forward to the day Spotify Wrapped drops each year far more than I do to my adult birthdays.
It delivers a smile you can’t wipe easily off my face, even this year, in that moment I realised that yes, I was actually too sick to go to Good Things music festival the next day.
Wrapped was a nice consolation.
I believe its name is because it’s your year’s music listening habits wrapped up neatly by data Spotify collects from its users.
But I like to think it’s called that because it’s a gift.
That playlist the Spotify robot makes for you of all the songs you listened to most throughout the year is a present anyone would be hard pressed to top.
I mean it.
I’m not one for gifts of pure gold and expensive perfume.
If I wanted those things, I’d probably just go and choose my own and buy them for myself.
But something curated especially for me and me only (even if ironically, inadvertently, by me) is next-level precious.
If Netflix gave me a similar breakdown, I wouldn’t care. I wouldn’t share.
There are not many of my habits, if any besides music, I’d get such a buzz seeing arranged into statistics.
My Wrapped is a badge of honour I’ll gladly stand by earning.
Not even the indirect heat I feel from online trolls who label people who share their results as losers for doing so can penetrate the ‘mettle’ it was forged from.
When they say, “FYI, nobody cares”, that’s entirely inaccurate.
I, for one, love seeing friends’ and acquaintances’ Wrappeds across socials.
Sharing Wrapped results details does feel personal though.
As my finger hovers above the share button, I get that pit in my stomach as though I’ve just shown up naked at school in a dream.
It’s raw exposure.
I feel like the music you like, what resonates, what you specifically choose to listen to, is so much more than just background sound to drown out the road noise on your commute to and from work.
It’s a part of your identity.
I’ve been both shocked and impressed at friends’ most-listened-to music.
And as someone who has tried (not very hard, I’ll admit) to let country music in, but failed and still has what is possibly a very unhealthy hatred for the genre, I’ve been a little flattened to see some friends’ top five artists and songs being dominated by country stars when I never pegged them as fans.
It’s not because I think any less of them because they don’t like what I like.
It’s just sad to know that with one of my favourite things in this world — music — I don’t have this genre in common with some of the people I’d like to.
How’s this for having things in common with others you thought were the cheese to your chalk though — a divorce probably a pretty convincing confirmation of such.
My ex-husband and I ended up with the same most-played song of the year.
No, it wasn’t our wedding song.
I mean, I’m not sure Sober by Tool would be an appropriate wedding song for anyone.
Although, it probably wouldn’t surprise me to learn if it had been someone’s, somewhere.
You know what else makes me buzz when the music-loving crew in my house unwraps their Wrapped?
That the kids’ most-played artists and songs are peppered with some of my faves from my ‘era’.
Although, I’m not really sure what my era is supposed to be.
You’re not just licensed to listen to music for a decade or so before your era is over, surely.
Isn’t my era my whole life?
I’ve been alive in six decades now.
(Yes, midway through the last year of the ’70s still counts as the ’70s, fight me on it).
I like music from every one.
I like music from before I was born.
I like music from almost every genre (you can still keep your country).
So when artists from any of my years before my kids were born hit top place on their Wrapped lists, I’m proud.
At the risk of sounding 100 per cent bogan and anything like what their father’s and my top song’s title would describe me as, I beam like the Jimmiest of Jims to have had some influence over their taste in music.
Music is a gift all round.
Let’s unwrap it together.