FANFAQ: Is Your Spotify Wrapped Lying to You?
Okay… you totally didn’t stream the Wicked movie soundtrack for 200 hours this year. If your Spotify Wrapped feels off, here’s what might be the culprit.
Spotify Wrapped dropped this week, and as a result, your timelines may be flooded with everyone excitedly sharing their top artists, top songs and “listening age.” But while many fans are excited to share their stats and showcase their music taste, others feel like their Wrapped doesn’t accurately reflect their streaming patterns, convinced that their data is “broken” or “inaccurate.”
Is Your Spotify Wrapped Lying to You?
Not exactly. There’s a few reasons you may have gotten a recap that doesn’t align with what you imagined.
One of the most important things to remember is that Spotify does not track your entire year for Wrapped results. It only counts what you listened to from January 1 until mid-November. That means anything you played on repeat in late November or early December isn’t reflected at all. This alone can make your top artists and songs look totally different from what you feel like you’ve been obsessed with lately.
The second major factor is how Spotify actually counts streams. A song becomes an official “stream” after just 30 seconds, which means short songs, playlist loops, autoplay and background listening can cause a song you regularly took too long to skip to show up in your year-end stats.
Even a single week of hyperfixation can also outweigh months of casual listening. So while Wrapped is technically accurate, it often reflects patterns you didn’t realize were happening.
“Wrapped is about seeing yourself in your sound. Each story is made to be accurate, fair, and reflective, while still keeping a sense of mystery and magic. Wrapped is not only about counting what you listened to, but truly celebrating it” - Spotify
Here’s a quick look at how Spotify calculated some of the other key parts of this year’s Wrapped, according to the streaming platform:
How Top Songs, Albums & Artists Are Actually Ranked
Top Songs are based on play count, not listening time. Again, a “play” counts after only 30 seconds, even if the song came from a background playlist or shuffle. That’s why a song you barely remember can end up in your top 10, because you may have streamed it repeatedly without thinking.
On the other hand, both Top Albums and Top Artists are ranked based on time listened, rather than plays. Spotify calculates your Top Albums based on whether you’ve streamed at least 70% of the album’s tracks. The rankings reference both how much you played individual songs on the albums, as well as how evenly you listened to the projects as a whole.
Top Artists are determined by the total minutes you’ve spent listening to a particular singer, and only the main artist on each track gets fully credited. Featured artists on songs get a supporting credit.
How Spotify Calculates Your Listening Age
Did Spotify call you old? One of the most divisive elements of this year’s Spotify Wrapped is the brand new Listening Age metric.
It’s actually based on the concept of nostalgia, or as Spotify puts it, your “reminiscence bump.” Spotify defines the “reminiscence bump” as “the tendency to feel most connected to the music from your younger years.”
To calculate your Listening Age, Spotify looked at the release years of everything you streamed this year, then found the five-year span you listened to more than others your age.It then matched that era to the age you’d be today if those songs came out when you were 16–21, during your supposed “formative music window.”
So yes, if you disproportionately streamed 2001–2005 music this year, Wrapped may jokingly say your “listening age” is 37, even if you’re only 23.
How Spotify selected the #1 fans
Another popular feature of Spotify Wrapped is the Fan Leaderboard, which ranks your fandom based on minutes listened compared to every other listener worldwide.
Only the top percentage of listeners get the special fandom bragging right in the form of a ranked badge. The threshold varies by artist and can range anywhere from top 10 fans to top 999,999.
Spotify emphasizes this metric is based on time spent listening, not number of plays. It's a small detail, but one that can dramatically shift who qualifies as a “top fan.”
FANFAQ is a recurring column from Fangirl Forward that demystifies the entertainment industry for fans. Got something you’ve always wondered about? Send us your question here.