Now that the wrappings have been peeled back from our yearly listening lists, with what have we been left? The commodification of personality in the age of digital information, the affirmation of in-group identity in our attention economy, or a celebration of music as the force of human relationality?

Like an excited child, each Advent I await the unveiling of Spotify Wrapped: a musical time capsule diarising the highs and lows of the year. This year we were made to wait until the middle of the first week of December, in what is the latest reveal of the last five years. But, despite the buildup, it turns out that good things do not always come to those who wait. The expected “Your Top Songs 2024” playlist, the continuation of a musical tradition since 2016, is nowhere to be seen. Instead, we are told our top five artists and our top five songs. It is only through using a “hack” that we might discover the artists who missed the cut, but this guessing game hardly seems worth it.

Grinch-like gripes aside, my appetite for observing my stats, and those of many others, reflects the intrinsic societal hunger for hierarchy. I assumed 40,647 “minutes listened” would be a considerable feat. Only enough to put me in the top 7 per cent worldwide though, and child’s play compared to a childhood friend who clocked up a cracking 173,409. Dave, Kanye West, Interpol, BICEP, and Ariana Grande were my top artists for those (probably not) interested. Still, as social media stories tell us, vast swathes of people love sharing their musical leaderboards. I raise a glass to a friend whose top artists include Bach, Berio, and Bush (Johann Sebastian, Luciano, and Kate). I also raise an eyebrow at a very serious conservative commentator friend, for whom T-Swizzle was number one, and at an ex-colleague who streamed Bouncing Balls by The Wiggles a grand total of 541 times. She blames it on her daughter. I’m not so sure.

Spotify has come under fire, repeatedly and rightly so, for the measly sums which they pay artists, who are often left worse off despite being better known. Wrapped has also been criticised as a reflection of modern narcissism — the turning of oneself into a CV, an exercise in earning social capital, and as the enabling conditions of one’s own self-definition. I see where such opinions originate, but, at the same time, encourage such commentators to resist a materialist mindset, and to consider music as experience rather than reified product.

Listening to music is not the same as buying loo roll. Charting the latter would be ludicrous, but constructing the soundtrack of one’s life is significant. How does one record the past? Through diaries and photographs, of course. But playlists, too, chronicle and make sense of our lives. By listening back on the year, we make resolutions, both conscious and unconscious, for the next. I have no time for Spotify’s glutinously twee attempts at naming musical phases. No, October was not my “Wild West American Football Uk Hip Hop moment”. This is oxymoronic — with the emphasis on moron. Likewise, it is impossible for my friends to have had a “Theatrical Instrumental Cool Jazz July” or a “Victorian Lute Classical March”. Those particularly irked me. There is no charm to such characterisation. It is meaningless tripe.

These playlists are not shaped by how one wishes to be perceived. Nor are they distorted by false memory

However, the process of delving into “Your Top Songs” of years gone by is meaningful. These playlists are not shaped by how one wishes to be perceived. Nor are they distorted by false memory. They are perhaps the closest we can get to true “images of sorrow, pictures of delight, things that go to make up our lives”.

40,647 minutes are a lot of minutes, and 173,409 minutes are a great many minutes more. While the direct monetary benefits of these minutes may be infinitesimal, the broader streaming revolution is nothing short of miraculous. I, for one, have experienced intense live musical pleasures as a result of what I had first been exposed to, by accident or experiment, through streaming. I therefore beseech readers to book a concert, right here, right now, in the spirit of music. Economically, the benefits to the artist you purport to love will outweigh having bought a vinyl, cassette, or CD. And the experience of liveness is like no other: an orchestra tuning; the anticipation before a performer starts; their vulnerability and risk; the proximity to action; the intensity of engagement; and the comfort and discomfort of presentness.

The greatest joys are to be found through sharing music.