As the year comes to the end, some look forward to a fresh start in the new year, while others anticipate other events that close out the year like Spotify Wrapped. Released once a year, Spotify provides each user with individual data about their listening habits within the app. This includes top listened to artists, albums, and songs. Largely popular to teens and young adults, the release of this data has become a holiday of its own which fell on November 30th this year.

In addition to individual data, Spotify compiles a larger list of most streamed artists globally. The top globally streamed artist of 2022 was Bad Bunny, followed by Taylor Swift and Drake (Spotify). For the third year in a row, Bad Bunny topped the global charts as the Latin music genre continues to grow. Taylor Swift came in as a close second, largely due to her re-recorded albums and new album Midnights that dropped in late October.  

The top globally streamed song was “As It Was” by Harry Styles (Spotify). Released as a preview for his album Harry’s House, the song gained an immediate following. With close runner ups “Heat Waves” by Glass Animals and “STAY” by The KID LAROI (with Justin Bieber), these songs were streamed more than any other on the platform.

Global results is only one of the way’s Spotify ranks artist or song popularity. They also have more intricate data that separates streaming habits by country, then to individuals. To determine Barlow’s top artist and songs this year, we collected data from fellow peers about their listening habits.

With most students listening to Spotify for a total of 25,000-50,000 minutes this year alone and the top artist was Taylor Swift. Swift always had a target audience of teenagers and young adults, so her activity of re-releasing and announcing new music this year earned her even more popularity. Runner up Drake also frequently appeared in the top listened to artists for many high schoolers. Similarly, Drake also released his new album Honestly, Nevermind in the 2022 year. Artists such as Morgan Wallen, The Weekend, and Zach Bryan were rather popular, finishing off the top five most listened to artists of Barlow.

The top listened to song was harder to calculate because each individual surveyed had a different top listened to song. Therefore, no song can be labeled as the top listened to song of Barlow. Yet the data was rather interesting, as it obtained songs from many genres and many time periods. Some listen to old classics from the 1980’s such as George Michael’s “Careless Whispers”, or “Beat it” by Michael Jackson. While others opted for more current songs that fall into the indie or alternative genre, including “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan or “Tek it” by Cafuné. 

Spotify Wrapped highlights the diversity of the music world and how music contributes to individual, or group, identity. By providing data, the music streaming platform is able to unite people with similar interests year after year and help guide you into your next year of listening.  Who knows, maybe next year you’ll have the same top listened to artist, or maybe it will be one you have yet to discover.