It’s that time of year again when Spotify users flock under their favorite green apps to unwrap data-based gifts, thanks to its year-end Wrapped review. As a Spotify Premium subscriber for a few years, I did the same thing and forced a smile on my face when its “music personality” feature labeled me a “replayer.”
But this year I’ve been a little more envious of Apple Music users than usual. Not because its equivalent, Apple Music Replay, is a huge improvement over Wrapped — in fact, it seems like a shameless rip-off when you compare it to the animations it has used to summarize users’ listening habits over the past year.
Apple Music Replay does offer something, though, that I’d like to see in Spotify Wrapped — it actually gives you access to your listening data (if not animated) all year long, not just in late November.
These are the insights I like to get inside the Spotify app outside of Wrapped seasons, rather than having to use a third-party app.
not just for christmas
There’s no question Spotify has it, well, when it comes to fancy end-of-year animations of your listening habits.
First, it’s odd that the equivalent on Apple Music Replay is only available on Platform website (opens in a new tab) rather than in-app. In Spotify, it will only appear in the “Home” section of the app (as long as you’ve updated to the latest version 8.7.78).
Spotify Wrapped’s animated collection is also more comprehensive than Apple Music Replay. Apple’s content is shorter and focuses on rounding up your top songs, artists and albums of the year, as well as your top five genres.
Spotify, meanwhile, explains how many different genres you listen to, and what you listen to at certain times of day (I’m apparently engrossed in “Warm Good Vibes Angst” in the afternoon, which could be my Myers Briggs personality type).
But unusually for Apple, its Music Replay is a bit less locked-in than Spotify.if you go web version (opens in a new tab) At any given time, you can see some (albeit limited) stats such as number of plays and listening time, as well as the most streamed artists and albums. Your “Replay” playlist (also available in the app’s “Listen Now” tab) will also be updated weekly with your most listened to tracks.
Scroll down the page in the year-end music replay animation, and you’ll also see a “top 10” list of the most played songs, artists, and albums, which goes deeper than Spotify’s top five. Still, while Spotify Wrapped and Apple Music Replay have their advantages, both are only scratching the surface of the music data insights that other services might provide.
support behavior
Currently, the only way to get year-round insights into your Spotify listening habits is to use a third-party app like Stats.fm (iOS, Android), which is currently working on adding Apple Music support.
The app is a very convenient way to get your top track, artist, and album lists for a custom time period, provided you’re happy to grant it some pretty broad permissions.If you’ve been using Spotify for a while, you can also use the privacy section Then upload it to apps like Stats.fm.
This kind of data opens up the possibility of some really interesting insights, like what you listen to the most in a given year, or how many albums rather than songs you actually listen to. My only real problem is that the kind of music I listen to at work (which Spotify labels as “creepy psychedelic”) skews the data toward music that helps focus, rather than what really works for me. Say the most important music.
Indeed Last.fm pioneered the whole music data insight long before the Spotify Wrapped concept Sparked by the projects of the 2019 interns. As one of the early social networks, it took the whole concept to the next level with its “Neighbors” feature, which connects you with your musical soulmate based on your listening habits.
While this may be overkill for most people, it does show the broad possibilities of our music listening data. For now, though, I’m glad to see the Wrapped-style dashboard in Spotify year-round, even if I suspect that, like Christmas, its marketing power is made stronger by its rarity.