Spotify listeners told their musical personality for first time in viral trend

Are you a time traveller or a specialist? A nomad or a voyager?

No, these aren’t tech job descriptions or a travel agent’s shorthand - they’re music listening personalities, as determined by the computer algorithms of the world’s biggest music streaming app.

Spotify has crunched its data as part of its annual "Wrapped" feature, a personalised analysis of its 456 million users’ tastes and habits that many music lovers share online.

But this year they have added two new categories to identify music fans’ traits when it comes to picking what they listen to.

These are their "listening personality", which determines what kind of music they prefer, and their "Spotify mood" - which describes the way each subscriber feels based on what they have listened to at different times of day.

Some listening personalities are self-explanatory, such as "the jukeboxer", "the top charter", "the enthusiast" and "the devotee".

There is also "the deep diver", "the replayer" and "the maverick", who as Spotify put it is “frollicking in the sidestream” - exploring the outer reaches of pop while everyone else is “bathing in the mainstream”.

Which personality you fit into is determined by four metrics: familiarity v exploration; loyalty v variety; timelessness v newness; commonality v uniqueness.

'Spotify what is this?'

Spotify assesses whether users listen repeatedly to their favorite artists (familiarity), or sample a lot of new musicians (exploration); whether they return to the same songs and play them on repeat (loyalty) or spin through a lot of music before repeating (variety).

The app also analyses whether subscribers listen to brand new music as soon as it comes out (newness), or, as Spotify puts it, “wander the vast catalogue of all the music ever made” (timelessness).

Spotify’s "moods", which describe the type of music played on their morning commute or during an evening at home, go further than traditional musical genres.

They include "Trad Goth Creative Spooky", "Hopeless Romantic Rebellious Lighthearted" and "Hectic Heartache Raver", "Mellow Nostalgia Fun" and "Love Happy Upbeat".

Marie Rönn, Spotify’s global group creative director, said: “Genres don’t give you the nuance of what type of mood you’re in, so what we wanted to do there was to try to tell you a little bit about your musical mood throughout the year.”

But these have stumped some music fans.

Hannah McCarthy, a writer and creative director of the US cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse, wrote on Twitter: “Did other people get normal things for their Spotify Wrapped, or is it just me out here getting 'vampire mayhem gothic goblincore'?”

In response to being told his mood was "Positive Clowncore Confident", one app user called Izz said: “Spotify what is this?”

Mindful of her fans’ moods, Dionne Warwick, the legendary soul singer, urged them to let her know if she made it onto their Spotify Wrapped. "Most of my songs are sad and I am hoping you're okay,” she said. “We can talk about it."

While many listeners have shared their results on social media with a mixture of pride, surprise and even embarrassment, even Spotify admits sharing their Wrapped results is not for everyone.

"It's always interesting to see who wants to share and who doesn't want to share," said Tom Connaughton, MD of Spotify for the UK.

"If you go and stand by our music team, they're the least likely to want to show you [their results] because they're scared of what it says about them."

Most streamed artists and songs

The most streamed artist in the world on Spotify in 2022 was the Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny, with Taylor Swift the second-most-streamed artist globally and the top artist in the UK and Ireland.

Harry Styles had the most-streamed song around the globe with As It Was, while British indie rock band Glass Animals’ track Heat Waves came second.

At least one artist admitted to being caught out by the algorithm’s all-seeing eye.

Marina, formerly Marina and the Diamonds, revealed her most-played artist of the year was... herself.

The Welsh singer tweeted: "That embarrassing moment when you are your own top artist but you can't figure out why and then you realise that you used Marina Spotify playlists to do vocal warm ups to every night on tour."