Spotify Wrapped Dials Up Coverage

What’s your “listening age”?

If you’re not familiar with the term, you probably haven’t checked your Spotify Wrapped for this year yet.

The streaming music/podcast/audiobook platform continued its annual tradition of recapping user listening habits in a compelling and sharable format.

The feature garners PR coverage for its aggregate data like 2025’s most-streamed artist (Bad Bunny for the fourth time).

But it’s another data point that’s getting more attention in coverage and on social media – listening age.

Here’s how Spotify calculated the listening age of different users:

“First, we look at the release dates of all of the songs you played this year. Next, we identify the five-year span of music that you engaged with more than other listeners your age.”

Lots of people, including celebrities and influencers, took to social media to share their surprising age – more often older than they expected. (The Braithwaite team’s ages were all over the map, from -5 to 90).

What’s My Age Again?

Spotify has published annual recaps since 2015. It’s become a defining element of the company’s brand. But after a decade, finding new and interesting hooks can be a challenge.

Listening age, despite the discontented 70- and 80-something listeners, seems to have helped make this year’s recap a bit more memorable – and sharable.

The New York Times agrees:

“Listening age follows in a recent tradition of Spotify issuing gimmicky, loosely data-backed offerings designed to get their users to share the results on social media and engage in discourse with friends and strangers.”

Spotify is uniquely positioned to share compelling data on users’ listening habits. But companies are collecting more data from more customers all the time. Lurking in all the information are compelling stories – for sales, for PR, for customer engagement.

But it takes a little bit of creativity to come up with a narrative that gets audiences excited and eager to engage and share.