Spotify Wrapped anxiety: How listening stats became social currency

What our obsession with end-of-year music data reveals about taste, identity, and the quiet pressures of digital life, writes Music News Blitz’s Lindokuhle Mlombo.

Every December, timelines explode with neon-coloured infographics. Top artists, top genres, top songs and total minutes streamed. 

Spotify Wrapped has become more than just a quirky recap. It is a cultural event. 

However, while many share their results with pride, others feel a twinge of embarrassment, even anxiety. 

Wrapped was designed as a celebration of listening, but it has also turned music into a scoreboard, raising the question: are we enjoying songs or curating a performance of ourselves?