SINCE its inception in December 2016, Spotify has annually released a campaign called Spotify Wrapped, via which users and artistes can access and share a retrospective of their listening activity on the service throughout the previous calendar year.
This year, however, things have changed. This is the first time the music streaming service has released this particular music review in November, as all previous Spotify Wrapped campaigns were released during the first week of December.
What is Spotify wrapped?
Spotify Wrapped is a “deep dive” into the user’s or listener’s listening habits throughout the year, with an emphasis on both music and podcasts. Powered by AI, each listener’s Spotify Wrapped usually comprises the top five musicians and top five tracks they have streamed the most, their preferred music genre(s), and the number of minutes they spend listening to music in the app.
Above all, Spotify introduces new categories each year to make the campaign more engaging. As of this year, users can observe how many genres they’ve explored or how their mood typically varied during the day as they listened to music for example, from sentimental mornings to bittersweet and heartache-feeling afternoons, to warm and happy nights.
Spotify Wrapped 2022 also introduces a whole new Listening Personality feature. Essentially, the feature analyses the users’ preferences in music and classifies them in any of the following four personality metrics and each personality has its own traits which are Familiarity vs Exploration, Loyalty vs Variety, Timeliness vs Newness, and Commonality vs Uniqueness.
For instance, those who listen to their favourite artistes over and over are more inclined towards Familiarity than those who explore new artistes more.
There are also sixteen personality cards, each of which is named according to how the user’s listening personality is shaped by their musical preferences. For instance, ‘The Early Adapter’ is someone who has a “finger on the pulse of new music”, whilst ‘The Maverick’ is someone who listens to tunes that are not mainstream.
Most-Streamed artistes Globally
In addition to the individual statistics, Spotify also reveals information on the platform’s overall listening activity. According to the data gathering, Bad Bunny was the most popular artiste on Spotify in 2022, followed by Taylor Swift, Drake, The Weeknd, and BTS.
Bad Bunny, a Puerto Rican rapper, made history by entering the most-streamed artiste category for the third consecutive year. This year, his songs were streamed 18.5 billion times on Spotify, and his album Un Verano Sin Ti was the most-streamed album in the world.
Taylor Swift followed Bad Bunny as the second most streamed artiste overall. Her album Midnights, which was released on Oct 21, was the fourth most listened album worldwide on Spotify.
The next three artistes to round up the top five most streamed artiste categories on Spotify in 2022 were Drake, The Weeknd, and the K-pop supergroup BTS.
Most-viral artistes Globally
Surprisingly, Taylor Swift makes another appearance on the list, meaning that her music was most frequently shared on social media platforms directly from Spotify. The second place in this category was taken by The Weeknd, followed once again by Bad Bunny, BTS, and Lana Del Rey.
Now on to the most viral artiste globally. Unsurprisingly, Taylor Swift also made the cut, signifying that people often shared her music from Spotify on other social media platforms. The Weeknd finished in the second position, followed by Bad Bunny, BTS, and Lana Del Rey.
Most-Streamed Songs Globally
The year 2022 was fantastic for Harry Styles, too. The English singer-songwriter has the most-streamed song of the year on Spotify with As It Was. When Spotify Unwrapped 2022 was released, the song had been streamed over 1.6 billion times throughout the entire world.
The second and third positions were taken by Heat Waves by Glass Animals and Stay (featuring Justin Bieber) by The Kid LAROI, respectively. The singles Me Porto Bonito and Tit Me Preguntó by Bad Bunny were ranked fourth and fifth, respectively.
In particular, Spotify has explored the most-streamed retro music in 2022. This year’s most-streamed retro song was Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) by Kate Bush, whose fame was revived by the popular American Netflix series Stranger Things.
It was then followed by Coldplay’s Yellow and Eminem’s The Real Slim Shady. The Marshall Mathers LP was also the most-streamed throwback record of 2022. Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love, Coldplay’s Parachutes, Dr. Dre’s 2001, and The Beatles’ 1 were among the other most-streamed classic albums.
Top podcasts of 2022
At last, in 2022, The Joe Rogan Experience was once again the most streamed podcast in the world on Spotify. After Anything Goes with Emma Chamberlain, Alex Cooper’s podcast Call Her Daddy takes the silver.
The fourth place spot is then taken by Spotify Original podcast, Caso 63, which, apart from English, debuted in Spanish, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Hindi while the fifth place goes to a true-crime podcast by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat, Crime Junkie.
