The overall list is ranked based on the number of unique listeners, while the individual list is ranked based on total minutes listened.)Īs for Spotify’s top 5 artist lists, the No. (Note: Stream count doesn’t apply to the top 5 podcast lists. Ditto Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name),” which was released on March 26 and ended the year as the second most-streamed track on Spotify’s global tally. Whatever the case, that timeframe obviously privileges songs released early in the year, like Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License” – the most-streamed song on Spotify both globally and domestically in 2021 – which was released way back on Jan.

27, though Spotify wouldn’t confirm the specific date they stopped tallying streams for the individual lists, saying only that it was “a few weeks prior” to Wrapped’s Dec. For the overall lists, streams are counted between January 1 and Nov. Too late for 2019 Wrapped and too early for 2020 Wrapped, so RHCP didn’t appear on my Spotify lists at all.The three most anticipated Wrapped statistics – top 5 artists, top 5 songs and top 5 albums– are based on total number of streams (a stream being counted when a user listens to a track for at least 30 seconds, including offline listens). In November and December of 2019, I listened to a lot of Red Hot Chili Peppers, according to Last.fm.

Your top artists and songs were almost identical anyway. Right now you may be thinking, okay big deal. I’m sure there are perfectly reasonable answers to these questions, I just don’t know what they are. But then why do it at the beginning of December? Why not make it a New Year’s tradition? Also, why does it take 2 months to prepare data that Last.fm tracks in real time? I can go there any day of the year and get an up to date report of my listening history for any date range I want. And of course any listening that happens after the Year Wrapped is released won’t count. Spotify has to prepare the data and create the slideshow. It also makes sense that there’s a cutoff date. The songs you’ve been listening to lately, those in most recent memory, aren’t considered at all. Now we can see why people are sometimes surprised by Spotify’s top picks. In other words, the songs you play in November and December are not counted in your Year Wrapped stats. This gives our teams enough time to assemble everything. And voila: this moderator post on the Spotify Community board reveals the answer.Īny listening after this won’t be included. Therefore, I looked to Spotify’s tracking methods to discover a reason for the discrepancy. So we can trust Last.fm is an accurate baseline.

Top spotify artist for me