Not another essay about spotify wrapped, I promise, but an essay about the act of loving something publicly. About the miracle of shared joy. And yes, I speak about wrapped, but I want this to be a wish for a world where we don’t need a reason to talk about our favourite bands.
My friend Austen shares an instagram story from a website called receiptify every month. Packaged like a cute little receipt, receiptify gives you a list of your top 10 songs from the past month. It’s a fun little exercise in sharing what you’ve been listening to. I’m fairly certain the programming is dodgy anyways, because some of the stats are a little wonky, but the gist is the same.
I love it because it’s basically a mini-wrapped, a cheat code, a peak at the final pages of a really good book. Doesn’t that seem wonderful?
And doesn’t it seem wonderful to wait eagerly for the first of the month, so you can see what Austen has been listening to, so you can be reminded to share what you’ve been listening to?
I keep seeing similar videos on social media. The premise is simple: an interviewer stops someone on the street to ask what song they’re listening to. In my favourite ones, the stranger is listening to something obscure – mid-century Japanese jazz or a deep cut from some old mixtape. Every time, I want to interject and ask them why?
Why that specific song, on that specific day? What, exactly, do you love about it?
It’s beautiful, in a way, because every song has a little history behind it – a gesture towards something half-remembered: low December sun on a frozen lake, oilslick prairie pond burning at the end of day, a driveway and a car and the rain beating steady on the windshield.
It’s beautiful because in that moment, taking their headphones off and smiling, just about to speak, the stranger invites you into a world entirely of their own making.
It’s beautiful because we build a home with our music. We stuff the rooms and cover the walls until they are bursting, then we imagine greater possibilities, new rooms to fill with newer songs, a dark ravine out back, an entire sky looking down on this diorama.
Imagine that. A song as a secret little history hiding somewhere just out of sight. An heirloom that we pull down and dust off and give to the world, like a shy kid in grade school, lifting up his favourite toy for show-and-tell.
I think what I love most about spotify wrapped is that, for one day only, everybody has a chance to share their music with the world. To talk about your favourite songs, and to do so mostly without shame. Part of the charade is showing off how cool you might be, or how indie, or how niche, or how much you actually listen to the Grateful Dead. Part of this is ego, and there’s very little wrong with that.
But I urge you, please, to remember that sharing songs is a selfless joy. It is one of my most sacred rituals, and I have shared old songs with new friends and new songs with old friends and I have made mixtapes to say I Love You and I have made breakup tapes and I have been handed the aux in a crowded car and once a friend and I found a song at the same time and it showed up on both our wrapped lists and we argued over who found it first.
The greatest joy of music is how it traverses the space between private and public. I have stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the pit and felt completely, utterly alone. I have had days where I don’t leave my room but feel, because of the songs I have played, like I’m a part of something greater than myself.
I love spotify wrapped in the way I love a concert video on someone’s instagram story. The way I love band shirts. The way I love mosh pits. The way I love record stores and vinyl shelves and boomboxes. The way I love dancing even though I’m wearing headphones and the sidewalk is busy. The way I love year-end album lists and writing about music and reading music writers.
I love music most when it is an act of outward love. When it is something you care about deeply enough to share with anyone who cares.
What I’m getting at is a belief that we shouldn’t require mountains of data or flashy animations to talk about our music. That spotify wrapped is a Good and Fine Thing because at least it gets us talking about music more than we did yesterday.
And yet, you cry, spotify is repackaging your data! It’s just the surveillance state disguised as a year-end gimmick! There are a million reasons to despise spotify, but wrapped is not one of them. I’m not surprised that spotify has been hoarding my data because every app has been hoarding my data. At least they wrap it up with a neat little bow.
But why should we let spotify have all the fun? Why concede our joy?
Share your music on your own terms. Talk about your favourite songs. Wear a band shirt that nobody knows and, when they ask, tell them about the drummer who worked the merch table. Play some freaky shit on aux. Sing in the kitchen even when your roommates are home. Post a song on your instagram story. Post three. Delete your instagram and send me ten songs on a postcard. I’ll listen to them all.
Hi Dan! This post is what convinced me to get a get a substack. I hope you are doing well in post college life. I’m sure you are since you’re such a cool dude with a big heart. I am about to start my final semester! I chose to take Fiction Workshop with Logan instead of Adv. Poetry with Liz.
I love music and I admire your encouragement that we should all share our passions out loud.