Ariane de Gennaro
No. 1 Song: “Add It Up” – Nbhd Nick.
“Spotify says my Audio Aura is wistful and confident. Wistful and confident?
“I’m not entirely sure how these two can go together, but I find it representative of the fact that my top 10 songs come straight off of my workout playlist and the next 10 come off my main character, deep feels playlist that I reserve exclusively for trying to romanticize my walk from Branford College to Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall. Indeed, the mix of starting the year amidst the throes of the pandemic back home and finishing it amidst the crazy that has been my first semester at Yale really did create dual personalities for my Wrapped aura. I ended up spending approximately 17 days of my life this year listening to Spotify, none of which I regret — although the brief foray into alt-communist punk was a strange era. It does feel like a lot of time, but seems to pale in comparison to my friends’ literal months of lofi hip hop study beats.”
–Anabel Moore
No. 1 Song: “Clair de Lune, L. 32”
“Upon opening my much anticipated Spotify Wrapped, I was mostly honored to have my music taste described in three adjectives instead of a measly two — “happy” and “hopeless romantic.” Is hopeless romantic technically one adjective? Perhaps. Is it a singular adjective which contains two adjectives, thereby meaning that Spotify described my music taste in three adjectives unlike the rest of Spotify’s peasantly two-adjective music listening population? Yes. This pride ride was quickly shot down, however, upon discovering that my top song of the year was “Clair de Lune, L. 32” by Claude Debussy. Classically cool? For sure. Cool in modernity? I think the necessary use of the word “modernity” is the nail in the coffin on that hard no. Maybe next year I’ll strike a balance between surpassing my fellow music listeners in adjective count and properly existing within this century.”
–Maddie Soule
“Every year, I give out my Spotify Wrapped in pieces. When friends ask about my top five songs, I tell them I spent 52,290 minutes listening to music. I respond to my brother’s all-caps enthusiasm — “SHOW US THE GOODS” — by admitting that Nicholas Britell was my second most-listened-to artist for the second year in a row — I write all my papers to the “Succession” soundtrack. I do this not because I’m embarrassed. Between Zoom classes and the emergence of new COVID-19 variants, we each did what we had to do to get through this past year. For some people, that resulted in braggable year-end lists and aesthetic auras. For me, it meant listening to BTS’s “Butter” 518 times as I reaped every ounce of serotonin I could before my seasonal depression hit. I’m not ashamed, I just think my Spotify Wrapped is like the 3 a.m. dreams I write in my Notes app: something that I can share in snippets, but that ultimately I would rather keep to myself.”
–Ana Padilla Castellanos
“I absolutely adore Spotify Wrapped. It was my primary motivation for making a Spotify account in the first place. After all, who doesn’t love an algorithm’s in-depth and terrifyingly accurate analysis of your personality via the songs you listen to while fighting your way through finals season, especially when framed in bright and bold colors?
“This year, my top song was “Little Talks” by Of Monsters and Men, which in my opinion, is the perfect combination of aching nostalgia and the undeniable power of human memories. I think that was a particularly fitting theme for this year, because sometimes it’s just you and your wildly specific Spotify playlists against the world. I know I definitely made more playlists this year than I have for any other. Did I make one called “I will fight gravity in hand-to-hand combat and win?” Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’ll never tell.
“Though I’ll admit, finishing my Wrapped with the lyric “and if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like you’ve been here before?” from Bastille’s “Pompeii” was an unexpected emotional hit. Well-played, Spotify. Well-played.”
–Elizabeth Watson