It’s that time of year again, and I’m not talking about the beginning of the Christmas season. It’s Spotify Wrapped season. For those who weren’t around on the internet or listening to talk in the halls yesterday, at the end of each year Spotify releases statistics and information about your personal listening experience throughout the year.

Personally, I always dread the day that the Wrapped comes out because it always embarrasses me in some way. From an embarrassingly high number of minutes listening to songs on my playlist compared to my friends, or just the embarrassment of one of my songs or artists, I don’t tend to talk about with others.

Spotify tracks your data on their service from Jan. 1st to Oct. 31, but in regards to your top artists, it feels like they only track the first half of the year. There were artists on my list that I rarely listened to during the second half of the year. It feels like the artists I got into during the summer weren’t at all seen in my Top Songs of 2022 playlist either. It seemed like all the songs came from the first half of the year except for a new Gorillaz single.

I also feel like some of my favorite artists were a bit random. Harry Styles was my second most-played artist, and I mean I liked “Harry’s House,” but I feel like I definitely listen to Steve Lacy more, who was my number three. I also feel like my top songs were not representative of the variety I listen to as three of the five songs came from the same album.

I did like the “personalized” messages from artists this year, which is a new feature. I got messages from artists like St. Vincent, who is one of if not my favorite artists yet didn’t appear at all as one of my top artists or in my 2022 playlist. I think that the messages are a cool way for artists to interact with their listeners.

Some of my friends felt like their picked songs were random, but others felt like it was representative.

I feel like the concept is very cool for a person to be able to reflect on their year through music, but I think Spotify needs to become a little better with their data collection. I feel like a lot of people were in the top smallest percentages of their top artists too, which doesn’t seem likely. Ultimately I think it is important to remember that your music taste is not fully represented by five songs and five artists.