The last month of the year has arrived and so has streaming giant Spotify's annual roundup of its most streamed artists and albums.
"Spotify Wrapped" not only shows users glimpses of their own journey with music on the platform through personalized eye-popping graphics, but also releases a list of top albums, artists, and listening trends.
Here's a look at what Spotify trends for 2022 revealed:
Who Are India's 'Top Streamed' Artists?
Arijit Singh continued to be the most streamed artist on Spotify for the third consecutive year in India. Pritam came second on the list. The 'Mozart of Madras', AR Rahman took the third spot. With over 19 crore streams this year, 'Excuses' by AP Dhillon, Intense, and Gurinder Gill was the most streamed song of 2022 in India.
'Excuses' was followed by 'Pasoori' by Shae Gill, Ali Sethi, Zulfiqar Jabbar Khan, and, Abdullah Siddiquii. Pritam's 'Kesariya' from the movie 'Brahmastra' took the third spot. The song's 30-second 'hook-step' inspired an Instafest with many Indians using it in their reels.
Indians were also united in listening to the late Sidhu Moosewala's 'Moosetape.' Moosewala was ranked eighth among the most streamed Indian artists. His killing by unidentified assailants in Punjab's Mansa district in May 2022 evoked interest in his songs, a representation of popular rap culture prevalent in Punjab.
The World Grooved To Taylor Swift, BTS, and Bad Bunny
Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny topped the global Spotify Wrapped 2022 in the most-streamed artist category list for the third year in a row. The rapper's album Un Verano Sin Ti, was the most-streamed album worldwide.
Taylor Swift grabbed the second spot for the most-streamed artist. Swift's album, Midnights, saw an October release. It was the fourth-most-streamed among all albums on Spotify in the world. Taylor was also the 'most-viral artist' of the year.
Drake, The Weeknd, and K-pop supergroup BTS completed the top five in the most-streamed artist category.
In 2022, The World Couldn't Get Enough of These Songs
English singer Harry Styles topped Spotify's most-streamed song with the massively popular "As It Was" which was streamed 1.6 billion times globally at the time of unveiling Spotify Wrapped 2022.
"Heat Waves" by Glass Animals and "Stay" by The Kid LAROI caught the second and third spots.
Spotify Introduces a 'Listening Personality' in its Wrapped
Spotify offered a brand new listening personality feature to listeners. This feature analyzed the music tastes of the users and classified them into the following four personality metrics — Familiarity vs Exploration, Loyalty vs Variety, Timeliness vs Newness, and Commonality vs Uniqueness.
The platform also introduced 16 different personality cards to gauge people's listening patterns. 'The Early Adapter,' for instance, is one who has the pulse on trending music while 'The Maverick' is the one who listens to songs that aren't widely popular.
How does Spotify 'wrap' your music?
Spotify's secret sauce in creating curated playlists lies in its reliance on algorithms. Its many playlists like "Top songs in the USA" and "Discover Weekly" are drawn from personal data. The platform's algorithmic delivery is known to have set it apart from other music streaming services.
Spotify Tracks Music we Listen to, Organizing it into Categories.
A 2019 study "Spotify Teardown: Inside the Black Box of Streaming Music" made clear that algorithms do not exist in isolation and mentioned how users are invited to have their listening habits turned into "taste profiles," which are then measured using certain parameters.
Another Bank of England study discovered that Spotify data can reveal user moods. Spotify can, therefore, deduce information on a user's socioeconomic demographic, ethnicity, age, and sexuality.
What Listeners Loved In 2021
The top song of 2021 globally was Olivia Rodrigo's runaway "Drivers license," which saw over 1.1 billion streams. Lil Nas X's viral "MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)" won the world's hearts at the second spot. Entering the ranks for the first time, The Kid LAROI with his Justin Bieber collaboration "STAY" took the third spot. The title of the top artist in India went to Arijit Singh last year as well. Music composer Pritam's release 'Love Aajkal' bagged the fifth spot on the most-streamed albums of the year.