German reggae, folktronica, pirate metal, Gregorian chants – whatever dark musical secret you may be hiding, Spotify knows about it.

Every December Spotify announces Wrapped, giving listeners the ability to look back on what kind of music or podcasts they listened to over the past year.

The personalised experience takes note of your listening habits from the beginning of January and ends a few weeks before Wrapped’s launch in the first week of December.

The feature debuted back in 2015 under the name Year in Music and was renamed Wrapped in 2017.

If you went through a passionate musical theatre phase at the start of the year that you forgot about, Spotify Wrapped will probably remind you about it.

Spent six weeks listening to a re-released Taylor Swift album? Spotify knows.

Tweet from @BeardedAtHeart

Wrapped is a collection of the top 100 songs you listened to over the course of a year. It also presents you with your top five artists, songs and your top genre and podcast, plus how much time you spent streaming.

But it’s not just fun and games. This time last year the Wrapped release led to a 21 per cent in downloads of Spotify’s mobile app as listeners rushed to share their stats on social media. And for artists and podcast creators, it enables them to see how many listeners they have attracted over the past year.

Tweet from @rinasawayama

How does it work?

According to Spotify, the songs and artists you listen to the most are ranked by a combination of the number of plays and the number of days you listened to them.

The top five songs and top five artists are based on play-count.

The ranking of the top 100 songs, however, isn’t a direct reflection of your play-count.

While it is initially calculated by play-count, Spotify applies artist separation after the tenth track.

If you don’t have Spotify, Wrapped is presented as a slideshow that plays your top-rated songs as you rediscover the music you listened to the most.

Tweet from @txpsykxng

So who were the biggest artists this year?

There are no deep, dark secrets here. If you don’t have Spotify, the streaming service publicly released a number of global top lists. 

Most streamed artists globally:

1. Bad Bunny
2. Taylor Swift
3. BTS
4. Drake
5. Justin Bieber

Most streamed songs globally:

1. drivers license by Olivia Rodrigo
2. MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name) by Lil Nas X
3. STAY (with Justin Bieber) by The Kid LAROI
4. good 4 u by Olivia Rodrigo
5. Levitating (feat. DaBaby) by Dua Lipa

In Australia, the most streamed songs are:

1. Heat Waves by Glass Animals
2. drivers license by Olivia Rodrigo
3. STAY (with Justin Bieber) by The Kid LAROI
4. good 4 u by Olivia Rodrigo
5. WITHOUT YOU” by The Kid LAROI

And the most streamed Australian artists are:

1. The Kid LAROI
2. The Wiggles
3. Hilltop Hoods
4. AC/DC
5. Flume

What happened this year?

In 2021, Wrapped also introduced some new features including audio aura and playing cards. If you want to know what your aura looks like based on your listening mood, well, there’s now an app for that.

Another surprise addition this year allowed creators to thank fans for having them in their ‘Your Top Songs 2021’ or ‘Your Artists Revealed’ playlist.

However, not everybody was thrilled with this year’s launch.

Tweet from @chanelnumberpi

And while Spotify Wrapped usually goes off without a hitch, this year it appeared a number of listeners couldn’t access the feature.

Some users said the app kept crashing when they tried to open Wrapped. Others claimed it wasn’t available to them at all.

Tweet from @DIPSYTEEZ

While it’s not clear what caused the glitch, it’s worth nothing that Spotify Wrapped is only available in the app.

A Wrapped banner should pop up on your homepage and if it doesn’t, it’s recommended you follow this Spotify link and re-download the app.