Taylor Swift’s Reign and the Surprise of Spotify’s Listening Age.

Spotify’s annual Wrapped feature, as with every year, has presented listeners with statistics of their music consumption throughout the year. However, the main attraction this time was the “Listening Age” feature. Through this feature, an age is assigned according to the listeners’ musical tastes, which often does not correspond with the user’s actual age. Spotify says the foundation of this data science is not particularly deep but rather a playful hypothesis. The primary aim of this feature is to encourage users to share their results on social media. Digital marketing entrepreneur Troy Osinoff has termed this the best marketing tactic of the last 10 years, as people have an insatiable interest in knowing and sharing about themselves.

User experiences show that this reversal of age figures is quite amusing. For instance, an artist named Grimes shared that her listening age was 92, stating she enjoys “oldies.” Again, Mark Morgan, an ecologist, was slightly surprised to see his listening age as 72 but was not particularly annoyed. He mentioned that he had listened to a song from 1970 because it was used in the popular drama series ‘The Last of Us,’ which increased his musical age. Conversely, a completely opposite event occurred in the case of Jon Porter and his daughter. The father’s musical age came out much lower than the daughter’s age. These incidents indicate that there are no specific boundaries of age when it comes to listening to music.

Data on the most popular artists among Spotify users in the UK this year is provided in a table below:

Although this Wrapped feature is bringing delight to users, serious allegations have surfaced surrounding Spotify behind the scenes. A campaign named “Unwrapped” is criticising Spotify for hosting AI-generated music on the platform and running ads for the controversial ICE. ICE is the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is tasked with detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants in accordance with Donald Trump’s immigration policies. This has resulted in numerous protests and arrests. Spotify, however, has stated that these ads do not conflict with their policies and are part of a campaign by the US government across television and online channels. Moreover, users can avoid these ads by giving a thumbs down if they wish. Nevertheless, alongside the delightful features, these controversial issues are impacting Spotify’s brand image.