Guess Who?
Her top genre is Dance Pop and her top artist is Arctic Monkeys. She spent 47,607 minutes on Spotify in 2021, and much of that time was spent listening to Sweater Weather by the Neighborhood.
That’s what OVS junior Ella Schuette found out about herself on December 1 when Spotify dropped Spotify Wrapped 2021.
“I wasn’t really surprised because I listen to those songs on repeat,” said Ella, who says she is not fond of the year-end reveal. “I dislike Spotify Wrapped because it makes me feel like I’m generic and not unique.”
On Dec. 1, Spotify released Spotify Wrapped 2021. 
Spotify Wrapped is a service released in 2015 in which Spotify briefs its users on their hours spent on Spotify, top artists, songs, podcasts. It even tells listeners if they are in the top percentile of listeners for an artist/ podcast.
Spotify was the first streaming service to introduce this service and many others followed in its wake.
Although they don’t all offer the exact same service, it is a good window into an individual’s music taste.
The day Spotify dropped Spotify Wrapped 2021, a survey was sent out to Ojai Valley School Upper Campus teachers and students to collect data on the school’s music and streaming service preferences.
The first question in the survey asked OVS what streaming service they use.
Much like the real numbers, there was an overwhelming majority of listeners who used Spotify with Apple Music following a few million users behind.
However, the total statistics show Spotify taking up just under 50% of monthly listeners, SoundCloud with about 23%, and other services share the rest of the stake about equally.
At OVS, Spotify users take up about two-thirds of listeners, and Apple Music follows behind with about one-fifth of listeners. Surprisingly, SoundCloud, which takes up about one-fifth of worldwide listeners, had no recorded users at OVS Upper Campus.
Micah Sittig, Ojai Valley School STEM teacher, uses Youtube Music. He had EDM as his top genre this year, but also listened to 70s soft jazz and movie music. His top song this year was Smokin’ out the Window by Silk Sonic and his top artist was Silk Sonic.
“I like old school House Music and a little bit of Trance,” Mr. Sittig said. “That’s usually what I listen to in the evenings when I’m trying to relax.”
Now to what everyone wants to hear: the musical tastes of Ojai Valley School Upper Campus.
Although not every genre of music was represented in the survey, there was a pretty diverse range of genres.
There were only two genres that repeated more than twice: Dark Trap and Dance Pop. Similarly, out of all of the responses, no two students even shared one song in their top three.
However, although there was a large spectrum of songs genres and artists, many students shared many artists in their top 5 lists. Artists such as Clairo, Kanye West, Drake, Doja Cat, Frank Ocean, and Taylor Swift appeared on multiple top-five lists.
One of the best features of Spotify wrapped is telling dedicated listeners if they were in the top percentile of an artist. Some can even be in the top 0.005% of an artist’s listeners which is one in every 20,000 listeners. Zachary Danino was placed in the top 0.005% of Brockhampton listeners.
“I would say out of the 70,000 minutes I listened to, 20,000 of those were Brockhampton,” Zachary said.
Some listeners can be so dedicated that they receive a personal thank you from their favorite artists.
For example, Fred Alvarez, college counselor and Coldplay aficionado was personally thanked by Coldplay on his drive to school.
“It was the most exciting part of my week,” Mr. Alvarez said. 
Mr. Alvarez had more than 90,000 minutes on Spotify in 2021, and many of those were listening to singer-songwriters such as The Avett Brothers, Billie Eilish, and Van Morrison.
By comparison, Ella Schuette’s top songs were Sweater Weather, Take Me to Church, and Wonderwall, all very popular songs that led her to feel that her music taste is unoriginal.
“I hope next year I have more underground artists on my Spotify Wrapped,” she said.