December is a time of many traditions. For SHS students, one of those traditions is Spotify Wrapped, an interactive summary of listening habits released by the streaming platform every year. Winter 2025 marks not only the return of Wrapped season but also the second year of a Talon spotlight exploring students’ diverse musical tastes.
Welcome to SHS Wrapped.
Let’s skip ahead to Spotify’s controversial new Wrapped feature: listening age. This number was assigned to users based on the release dates of music they listened to, and according to the results of a Talon survey, not everyone at SHS is happy about it. The feature “made me feel old,” said one responder who reported a listening age of 39. It could be worse—student ages ranged from 18 to 87. (That last responder protested that their results were skewed by their habit of listening to “relaxing jazz” while studying.) Over 50% were in their twenties, though, signifying that they primarily listened to music from the 2010s.
Moving on to the classic Wrapped elements, the competition in the artist category was fierce this year. The top spot was shared between Drake and Tate McRae, while second place went to Taylor Swift and The Weeknd. That’s a reversal of last year’s results—in 2024, Taylor Swift ranked first and Drake second. Finally, third place was another tie between indie pop artist Clairo and K-pop band Stray Kids. A few students also shared their thoughts on which creators deserved their top spot: “Drake is the goat.” “Just listen to Gracie Abrams.” “SABRINA CARPENTER ON TOP BABY!” And the real question: “Where is Sombr?!” Despite the recent popularity of songs like “back to friends” and “undressed,” just a single student listed Sombr as their number one.
Speaking of songs, SHS students submitted over ninety different tracks, but one emerged as the clear winner: The Weeknd’s “Timeless” featuring Playboi Carti. Surprisingly, the 2017 song “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran stood at a distant second. A few other artists, like Billie Eilish, SZA, and Bryson Tiller, also had several of their songs featured on the list. Want to hear the specifics? The full playlist is available now on the official Talon Spotify.
With a variety of artists and songs came a variety of genres, from hard rock to K-pop to country. Pop rap—the genre of Drake, among others—took the lead, followed by bedroom pop, indie pop, and soft pop. In fact, of the 40 genres submitted by SHS students, 15 were variants of pop—which, after all, is short for “popular music.”
Just how popular was Spotify at SHS this year? Average listening time fell to 26,750 minutes from over 30,000 last year, and fewer students reported a time of 50,000 minutes or more—although one admitted to racking up 110,000 minutes. That’s more than 20% of the entire year.
While listening time declined, the average approval rating of Spotify Wrapped rose from 6.8 stars out of 10 to about 7.5 stars. Students shared that they enjoyed certain new features, like the ability to see how many times they had listened to their top 100 songs. Several mentioned how much they look forward to Wrapped every year. However, a few responders disagreed. Some called the summary “inaccurate” or not “interactive” enough, while one student claimed that “sharing your Spotify Wrapped has become increasingly performative.” Performative or not, it is a chance for students to share what they’re passionate about. And for the rest of 2025, we can spend some time reflecting on the music we (and our classmates) enjoyed this year.
Happy Wrapped!
