The beginning of December is more than just the holiday season: Spotify Wrapped is almost here — an annual recap of a user’s listening activity throughout the year with their top songs, artists, genres and podcasts — and I’m ready for the deep dive into my music taste. 

Other streaming services, such as Apple Music, have followed suit in recent years with comparable yearly recaps. With these releases comes an influx of Instagram stories sharing summaries and a collective excitement in comparing musical preferences. 

While waiting for this analysis, I find myself reflecting on my year through music. Summer saw a spike in Sabrina Carpenter with the release of her album “Short n’ Sweet,” transporting me back to the struggles of move-in week. October was marked by Taylor Swift’s “The Fate of Ophelia,” which I correlate to lengthy car rides to club retreats and filming TikToks with my suitemates. 

For students who lack time in keeping up with journaling, these music streaming platforms have become an alternative platform for reflection and self-expression. Spikes in specific genres can reveal periods of instability, such as looping the same stress-inducing track during midterms or playing slow, reflective music near the end of a semester.

On an average day, we wear our headphones and cruise through campus, matching our moods to the songs we listen to. I, for example, associate songs such as “Long Live” or “The Spins” with my high school graduation due to their lyrical implication of undergoing a major transformation. 

Music streaming apps have become, in a way, an online diary. Playlist titles categorize a collection of songs the same way diaries arrange entries, and repeat rewinds serve as emotional timestamps — recording what was felt during a specific time.

This also provides a window into one’s social life over the past year. Staying up-to-date with your favorite artist’s releases and feeling a part of their fan base is essential for feeling affiliated with a community. Sharing playlists with friends and having a role in a fandom can serve as an escape for overwhelmed students, offering a digital community-building methodology for support. 

Music isn’t chosen randomly: A song may loop in our heads, but ultimately, our mood has the most influence on what we listen to. Psychological studies support the idea that individuals tend to gravitate toward songs that match their current temperament, with music acting as a sufficient emotional regulator. 

A 2016 study by De Montfort University found that sad music helps individuals cope with grief more effectively than happy music, demonstrating the strong appeal toward gloomy, slow-paced songs. College students who are facing complex emotions may thus gravitate to songs by artists such as Frank Ocean and Phoebe Bridgers in an attempt to feel heard and reach that point of emotional catharsis. 

As college students, we often struggle to process our emotions, especially given the occupied nature of our lives. Our streaming services thus help us undergo the reflection we lack time for. A certain song may transport you back to a time, and, during such flashbacks, recall any emotions you didn’t thoroughly process. 

With the release of Spotify Wrapped and other recaps around the corner, let music continue to be a potent tool in understanding the underlying emotions that draw you to certain songs. Reflect on the growth in your music taste throughout the year, whether you diversified your genres or switched from a focus on instrumentals to detailed lyricism.

That’s the gift of music recaps: Rather than focusing on exclusively listening history, the recap reveals what you were trying to process and all the thoughts you couldn’t articulate. Your music knows you better than you know yourself; thus, treat this development as an extension of your temperament.