Obviously, Spotify Wrapped season is many music lovers’ favorite time of the year. But many people seek things to fill the void while they wait. Music taste, playlists, most-streamed songs, and favorite artists can tell so much about a person. So, tools that compile that data into digestible content are ever appealing to avid Spotify users. This type of data visualization has become a form of soul-searching for so many.
Crunching the numbers can be comforting. Turning the extensive content of your Spotify account into a list or infographic makes it easy to understand. It boils everything down, easy for you to see the patterns and maybe even learn something about yourself. Some of the more straightforward websites simply collect data across different time spans and present it to the user. Stats for Spotify tracks the top 50 tracks, artists, and genres, with the option to adjust the time frame to the last four weeks, last six months, or all time. Maybe you’ve been through a rough breakup recently, and the last four weeks are sadder and angstier, but your all-time top tracks are danceable poppy anthems. Stats for Spotify knows. Obscurify Music also covers similar categories, along with ranking happiness, danceability, energy, acousticness, and decades. It’s rooted in comparing the obscurity of your taste to the general Spotify audience. Bonus: it recommends 15 new songs it think you might like, so you can explore new artists while discovering what your music says about you.
The quirkier Spotify tools include NPR-core (comparing your taste to NPR’s picks) and How Bad Is Your Streaming Music? The latter delivers burn after burn as it roasts your music preferences and listening history in an interactive program. Or, select a sign, and Zodiac Affinity will pull songs from your account that match, if you’re into astrology.
Other data visualization tools center on aesthetics. These are among the fan favorites on social media. I’ve seen my friends make it a monthly tradition to post their results on an Instagram story, sharing what they found with an oh-so-adorable, personalized infographic. For example, Receiptify will create a playlist printed on a crumpled-looking receipt, with details featuring Spotify username, date, and more. Make one for top tracks, artists, genres, or general stats, also across different time spans. If you’ve ever dreamed of curating the musical festival of your dreams, Instafest will make a mock three-day lineup poster in different aesthetics, ready for you to showcase your faves. Or, musicScapes will develop a beautiful landscape, changing the background, time of day, color, and amount of mountains depending on different factors like listening time and key or scale. Icebergify asks, “how deep does your Spotify go?” before creating an iceberg, with your most popular artists near the tip and your most obscure deep under the sea. It makes sharing music even more fun. If social media isn’t quite your thing, then musictaste.space still allows you to compare your music taste with friends (or strangers!) with a compatibility score.
For those on Apple Music and other streaming platform users, don’t fret too much. Many of these programs are also available across different streaming platforms, even if Spotify is the most commonly included.
That being said — let’s be real. These tools are just super fun. Even if one misses the mark on the deepest part of someone’s personality, it’s no biggie. Music is so personal that analyzing your taste can’t tell you anything about yourself that you don’t already know. At the end of the day, crunching numbers is just that — but it can look super cute on your socials.
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