Spotify rapped: results don't reflect what we've listened to, say critics

They grow up so fast.

- Xavier Greenwood

Spotify Wrapped is already a decade-old December tradition in which the streaming platform gives users a summary of their year in music. It is a chance for people to rejoice or despair at their reflected habits, to compare their "listening ages" and the number of times they put on the Wicked soundtrack. But for all the idiosyncrasies of each listener's experience, there was a notable collective data point.

The top five artists in the world, according to Spotify's analysis of its 713 million users, were Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Drake and Billie Eilish. This, in a slightly different order, is the same as last year. Despite the more than 100m tracks on Spotify, and an estimated 100,000 new songs uploaded across streaming platforms each day, the acts at the top of Spotify increasingly represent a monoculture.

"Music has become a kind of lifestyle choice," says Crispin Hunt, a songwriter and producer who is president of the rights management organisation PRS for Music. "Because nobody can be bothered to dig deep into Spotify, you are basically turning on the radio without any DJs."