Spotify Wrapped 2022 arrives with new options like your ‘Listening Character,’ 40K+ Artist Messages

Spotify Wrapped 2022 has formally arrived. Although different music providers, together with Apple Music and YouTube Music, now put collectively their very own year-end retrospectives, Spotify’s personalised and interactive Wrapped expertise for its customers, creators and podcasters stays the one to beat. The key to its ongoing success is the way it goes past merely providing a abstract of prime songs or artists to additionally embody enjoyable, shareable components for music and audio followers to discover, submit to social media and evaluate with their associates.

The Wrapped expertise has grown in reputation over time. In 2017, some 30 million Spotify customers accessed Wrapped; by final 12 months, that determine had grown to greater than 120 million. As well as, there have been practically 60 million shares of Wrapped tales and playing cards throughout social platforms in 2021.

Client curiosity in Wrapped isn’t simply in regards to the information itself but additionally the best way that Spotify personalizes the information to its customers and presents it in intelligent methods. Last year, for instance, Wrapped included an “Audio Aura,” which confirmed listeners their prime two “moods” primarily based on their listening conduct.

This 12 months, the brand new addition of be aware is one thing Spotify calls your “Listening Character.”

Created with apparent inspiration from the basic Myers-Brigg character check and its four-letter codes, the “Listening Character” characteristic additionally introduces a four-letter mixture for the consumer that interprets into one of many 16 character sorts Spotify has created. For example, followers who rapidly stream new releases and who are sometimes forward of traits would possibly discover themselves dubbed an ENPC, or an early adopter, whereas followers who like to stream music from different elements of the world is perhaps labeled an ENLC, or a voyager.

“The way in which we hearken to music says lots about us and your Listening Character not solely tells you in regards to the music you hearken to however what that claims about your music style,” explains Spotify VP of Product Improvement Babar Zafar, who leads the workforce that creates the Wrapped expertise.

Folks’s character sort will probably be primarily based on a mix of the music they stream and a number of particular traits — like their tendency to find new music, the typical age of the songs they hearken to, the vary of artists they hearken to and the way their listening resembles or differs from others. Every of the 16 doable Listening Personalities is given its personal colourful card designed for re-sharing to social media or for messages to associates.

This new characteristic is being built-in with Snapchat, too, permitting followers to unlock a customized Snapchat Lens that displays their “Listening Character.” Snapchat customers also can reap the benefits of Wrapped-themed attire for Bitmojis. And with a brand new GIPHY partnership, customers can entry customized Wrapped-themed GIFs.

One other Wrapped 2022 characteristic is one thing referred to as “Audio Day,” which is an interactive story that describes a person’s listening traits from morning by way of night.

In the meantime, Wrapped’s well-liked “Prime Tune” characteristic is being expanded this 12 months to supply a couple of extra insights, like what number of instances customers listened to their prime music and on which day of the 12 months they listened probably the most.

Plus, customers will obtain their regular year-end updates about their prime artists, songs, genres, podcasts and minutes listened in addition to their Prime Songs 2022 playlist.

Regardless of the various methods to share and work together with Wrapped, Spotify admits it might’t monitor the complete attain of Wrapped because it notices its youthful customers will usually snap a photograph of their cellphone display for personal sharing, moderately than — or along with — posting their Wrapped to social media.

To assist tackle this, Spotify this 12 months is now extra deeply integrating with numerous messaging platforms as a part of its drive to get Wrapped shared — and tracked — in as many locations as doable. Whereas customers may at all times share Wrapped on social media, Wrapped 2022 is including direct integrations with WhatsApp, Instagram Direct Messages, Fb Messenger and Line, to be able to higher cater to these customers preferring to share their Wrapped extra privately.

Spotify can also be leveraging its more recent Roblox integration, Spotify Island, as a part of this 12 months’s Wrapped.

In its virtual world, Roblox customers can go on Wrapped-inspired quests, play video games, store digital merch and use a photograph sales space characteristic with 12 completely different artists, together with Bizarrap, Black Sherif, CRO, Doechii, Eslabon Armado, Miranda Lambert, NIKI, Stray Youngsters, SUNMI and Tove Lo.

The corporate can also be doubling down on another feature introduced last year: artist video messages.

Taking a cue from celeb social apps like Cameo and the recognition of short-form video, as on TikTok, Spotify final 12 months had labored with 170+ artists to create brief video messages the place they thank followers for together with them of their listening all year long. This 12 months, the corporate expanded the video message characteristic, “Your Artist Messages,” to greater than 40,000 music creators, together with well-known names like Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, J Balvin, Måneskin, Shania Twain, Pusha T and others.

Customers can scroll by way of the video messages in a vertical, full-screen interface, much like TikTok.

Spotify says customers will see these movies if they’ve a minimum of two artists with “thanks” movies of their prime artists. In different phrases, the characteristic is restricted to these followers who’re most engaged with the artists. Whereas the characteristic is bound to spice up fan engagement, it’s a disgrace the artists can’t additionally submit their movies elsewhere on Spotify — like a Tales part on their very own Artist profile, for instance. Spotify says customers can see as much as a most of 10 artists’ “thank yous” in Wrapped.

Wrapped may also get its personal hub on Spotify’s cellular app, the place streamers can browse merch and live performance tickets from their prime artists.

As in previous years, creators and podcasters may have their very own Wrapped experiences, obtainable instantly from Spotify for Artists, Spotify for Podcasters and Anchor. Artists will achieve perception into their streams, their most-shared lyrics, what number of followers had them of their prime artists, followers’ Listening Personalities and extra. Podcasters will achieve insights on listens and follows, what number of followers had their podcast of their prime 5 or 10, their prime episode general, placement on the charts and extra.

In fact, as a part of Spotify’s year-end assessment, the corporate additionally highlighted the top artists and creators on its platform, each globally and on a per-country foundation.

This 12 months, the most-streamed artist globally was Unhealthy Bunny, adopted by Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd and BTS. Probably the most-streamed songs globally had been “As It Was” by Harry Types, “Warmth Waves” by Glass Animals, “STAY (with Justin Bieber)” by The Child LAROI, “Me Porto Bonito” by Unhealthy Bunny that includes Chencho Corleone, and “Tití Me Preguntó” by Unhealthy Bunny. And the most-streamed albums globally had been “Un Verano Sin Ti” (Unhealthy Bunny), “Harry’s Home” (Harry Types), “SOUR” (Olivia Rodrigo), “=” (Ed Sheeran) and “Planet Her” (Doja Cat).

In reference to Unhealthy Bunny’s chart dominance — the artist is now the most-streamed globally for the third 12 months in a row — Spotify factors out that a mean of fifty% of customers globally stream a minimum of one Latin music per 30 days on its service, equating to round 215 million customers around the globe. To have a good time, Spotify will flip its inexperienced coronary heart to Unhealthy Bunny’s crimson coronary heart when customers “like” a Unhealthy Bunny monitor through the subsequent week.

“You possibly can see it’s excess of a style. The typical month-to-month streams of Latin music in 2022, up to now, is over 24 billion streams,” stated Spotify’s World Head of Public Affa1irs Dustee Jenkins. “A large quantity — and simply within the U.S., 1 in 10 streams is Latin music,” she famous.

Within the U.S., the most-streamed artists had been led by Drake in first place, adopted by Taylor Swift, Unhealthy Bunny, Kanye West and The Weeknd. The highest songs had been “As It Was” by Harry Types, “Warmth Waves” by Glass Animals, “Unhealthy Behavior” by Steve Lacy, “Me Porto Bonito” by Unhealthy Bunny that includes Chencho Corleone and “First Class” by Jack Harlow.

Prime albums had been “Un Verano Sin Ti” (Unhealthy Bunny), “Harry’s Home” (Harry Types), “Harmful: The Double Album” (Morgan Wallen), “Midnights” (Taylor Swift) and “SOUR” (Olivia Rodrigo).

Notably, Swift’s “Midnights” album solely arrived final month and already broke numerous records, together with becoming the most-streamed album in a single day. Not surprisingly then, Swift grew to become 2022’s “most viral” artist globally, forward of The Weeknd, Unhealthy Bunny, BTS and Lana Del Rey, primarily based on shares from Spotify to social platforms.

Spotify additionally highlighted its hottest podcasts for the 12 months, which, globally, had been led by “The Joe Rogan Expertise” (once more!), then “Name Her Daddy,” “Something Goes with Emma Chamberlain,” “Caso 63” (All Languages) and “Crime Junkie.” The U.S. listing additionally noticed Rogan and “Name Her Daddy” within the prime two spots, adopted by “Crime Junkie,” “The Day by day” and “Armchair Professional with Dax Shepard.”

And although a fairly new addition in the U.S., Spotify showcased its prime audiobooks in an inventory that didn’t appear to incorporate solely present releases. As a substitute, customers’ prime books had been “I’m Glad My Mother Died” by Jennette McCurdy, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” by J.Ok. Rowling, “It Ends with Us” by Colleen Hoover, “Atomic Habits” by James Clear and “The Delicate Artwork of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson.

The corporate stated it would additionally market Wrapped by way of out-of-home campaigns, together with issues like a phrase search that seems in billboards in LA and Brooklyn, and extra. Spotify moreover partnered with FC Barcelona, which can lead to 2022 Wrapped movies from gamers, together with Robert Lewandowski, Alexia Putellas, Pedri and Ansu Fati, shared to social media.

Wrapped 2022 is offered solely by way of Spotify on cellular gadgets.

Spotify customers have additionally been having fun with a third-party tool, Instafest, which additionally creates playlists primarily based on customers’ listening habits.