When OVS junior Charlie McGregor opened his Spotify recently he was amazed by the news – he was in the top .05% of all Yeat listeners.
“He’s just like amazing,” Charlie said. “Everything about him I like, his style just inspires me to be a better person every single day.”
Every year Spotify releases a personalized summary of your listening experience during that year. On November 30, the 2022 Spotify Wrapped dropped sending a bolt of musical conversations through the Ojai Valley School Upper Campus.
This encapsulation of listeners’ musical identity is a coveted event in the weeks leading up to its release.
“I was really excited about it this year,” says teacher and music aficionado Fred Alvarez. “It was incredibly thrilling…I felt like I was unwrapping a gift when it came time.”
Mr. Alvarez listened to over 57,000 minutes in 2022 and explored 99 genres of music.
“I don’t think you could quantify my music taste into any category,” Mr. Alvarez continued. “It’s really crazy what I listen to and what I like.”
Mr. Alvarez was far above Ojai Valley School listeners in total time on Spotify. In a poll conducted on both students and faculty, the average minutes listened was 17,053 or and about 45 minutes a day.
But, for some people 45 minutes a day simply isn’t enough time.
Logan Wallace and Will Ponzack were close to tied for most minutes listened this year with 123,000 and 124,000 respectively. For those who don’t want to do the math, that’s close to a whopping 6 hours a day, more than 99% of all Spotify listeners.
“I was told recently that there’s an option on Spotify called sleep timer, but all year I’ve just been listening to music throughout the night,” Logan said when questioned about his listening habits.
“It kind of messed up my Spotify Wrapped because it only made my sleep music what I listened to,” Logan elaborated.
This feeling of inaccurate representation by Spotify is common among listeners. Despite wrapped being simply a stylized view of raw data, many people claim that they felt other artists or songs would better represent their years listening experience.
“My top artist was Kendrick Lamar, which is surprising because I don’t listen to him that much,” said Soren Saye. “I think it’s rigged, I feel like my second place, Beach House, I honestly listen to more.”
Some of this feeling comes from being embarrassed about what you listen to. Music is a very intimate part of people’s lives and it can be uncomfortable to have it classified so numerically.
“I was, like, extremely embarrassed,” Kate Huey said about her top artist. “I think Kendrick’s actually my favorite,” who was her number two artist this year.
On the other hand, many find pride in seeing their music taste from the year.
“I thought it was really cool to know I was in the top .5 percent of Harry Styles listeners,” Alex Hollon said. “I get like, really happy to know who I’m supporting and how much I listen to them.”
Music is a very important part of the OVS community and culture. This year’s Spotify Wrapped showed the school, for better or worse, the listening styles of the student and faculty.
“I love listening to music because it’s important to my self expression and identity. I really like Spotify wrapped because I get to see my friends music taste and compare it,” said Mariana Thacher.