Buildings are mirrored behind the emblem at an Apple Retailer in downtown Chicago on Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017. Kiichiro Sato, Related Press
A buying and selling submit sports activities the Spotify brand on the ground of the New York Inventory Change on Tuesday, April 3, 2018. Richard Drew, Related Press
Spotify Wrapped — the end-of-the-year musical recap for listeners — was simply launched Wednesday morning for the app’s customers. In the meantime, amid the rewinding and humble bragging, a competitor to Wrapped, Apple Music Replay, has made its return to the stage.
Can it compete?
Spotify Wrapped has been guiding its listeners on a nostalgic journey by their favourite songs of the yr since 2016, driving on the mannequin of 2015’s “12 months in Music.” In line with Vox, the Wrapped algorithm tracks the songs, artists and genres customers have listened to all year long, whereas evaluating the period of time and clicks shared between Spotify customers.
“From the oddly particular to the unapologetically predictable, 2022 Wrapped encourages listeners to see into the colourful kaleidoscope of their listening and present it off to the world,” Spotify wrote in a press launch Wednesday morning.
A part of Wrapped’s recognition comes from the connection the marketing campaign fosters between music lovers, artists and their social circles. Spotify Wrapped is sharing-friendly, in that the varied statistics and patterns it experiences are brightly wrapped and simple to share on different on-line platforms, similar to Snapchat and WhatsApp.
Artist Messages acknowledge devoted followers of prime artists, as properly, connecting the viewers with the creator. This yr presents unique “thank yous” from over 40,000 artists to the customers with the very best variety of minutes listened to from these artists.
Spotify leans into the enjoyable of all of it, too. Tech Crunch reported that on Snapchat, for instance, Wrapped-themed lenses, GIFs and Bitmoji attire can be found by the top of the yr. Within the sport Roblox, there’s even a Spotify Island to rejoice the annual music custom. The marketing campaign goes a step additional with its algorithm, sorting customers into enjoyable classes primarily based on their listening habits. Wrapped 2021 supplied “Audio Auras” to seize the temper of their favourite songs, for instance, whereas 2022 kinds customers into Myers-Briggs impressed “listening personalities.”
A buying and selling submit sports activities the Spotify brand on the ground of the New York Inventory Change on Tuesday, April 3, 2018.
Richard Drew, Related Press
Wrapped isn’t with out its flaws, nevertheless. In simply the primary day of Wrapped being launched, HITC reported that a number of Spotify customers have complained of the service not working correctly, or being outright lacking from their homepage. Experiences of the statistical slideshow freezing and crashing are unusual, however make collaborating within the marketing campaign troublesome.
For a while, Apple Music customers have been unnoticed of the enjoyable. The revival of Apple Music Replay — initially launched in 2019 — places it within the highlight this yr as a competitor and potential various to Wrapped. Replay’s listing of options is considerably shorter than that of the Wrapped marketing campaign, 9 to five Mac reported, making it troublesome for the service to compete.
Replay compiles customers’ complete listening time for the yr, in addition to playlists of listeners’ prime 100 songs for the yr. A key distinction between Replay and Wrapped is that the place Wrapped solely lasts for a little bit over a month, Replay is obtainable year-round. Whereas unavailable by the Apple Music app, Replay may be accessed by way of browser at any time, displaying the most well-liked songs of the yr nationally and globally, too.
These playlists and statistics may be shared on different on-line platforms, however Replay has obtained criticism that accessing and sharing customers’ stats shouldn't be as simple as with Wrapped. Screenshotting your most performed songs is the first manner of sharing customers’ prime songs and artists, and the marketing campaign lacks the interactivity and connectivity of its competitor.
One other criticism stems from the service’s lack of options and personalization. The place Spotify presents brightly coloured summaries of a consumer’s most listened genres alongside their music moods all through the day, Apple Music provides prime artists and songs in a proper, difficult-to-find listing.
Apple Music Replay provides an easy-to-digest report on listeners’ most performed music previously 12 months and presents playlists that may be accessed for years to come back. However as The Verge writes, Replay’s flaws end in it not being “optimized for the use case that has made Spotify Wrapped such a cultural phenomenon: social media sharing.”