The highly anticipated Spotify Wrapped officially dropped on Wednesday, and users of the music app have been sharing their stats on social media — though one new feature has left people perplexed.
The “My Sound Town” addition to Wrapped pairs users with a city that allegedly matches up with their music taste, spanning the whole world.
And, yet, most responses from the music streaming zeitgeist indicate a glut of interest in three somewhat random US cities: Cambridge, Massachusetts; Berkeley, California; and a whole lot of Burlington, Vermont.
With over 1,300 Sound Town cities, the matchup is “objective and entirely driven by a user’s listening history,” a Spotify spokesperson told NBC.
“The Sound Town selected for each eligible user has the most similar taste profile to their own — based on their most streamed artists of the year and how those artists are streamed in other cities across the globe,” they added.
Folks on X (formerly Twitter), however, beg to differ with Spotify’s dubiously “global” assessment.
Platform users pointed out that all three of these cities are college towns and came to the conclusion that being placed in Burlington, Berkeley and Cambridge indicated LGBTQ listeners, with top artist-allies such as boygenius, Charli XCX and Janelle Monáe.
According to Spotify, listeners “must have at least three top artists who over-index in a particular city” to match with their Sound Town.
Their data revealed that 0.6% of listeners matched with Burlington; 0.3% got Berkeley; and 0.1% were assigned to Cambridge. The city with the most matches was San Luis Obispo, California, with 0.8% of listeners.
Meanwhile, Spotify subscribers on social media made a meme out of rep’ing their Sound Town.
“Spotify is trying to make a gay commune in Berkeley, a lesbian commune in Burlington and a bisexual commune in Cambridge,” one X member theorized.
“Back in my day, you had to ask Google ‘Am I gay?’ Now Spotify Wrapped just tells you by placing you in Burlington, Berkeley, or Cambridge,” another quipped.
“How do Spotify ‘Sound Towns’ work [because] I’ve seen like 20 people get Burlington, Vermont and every time it’s with different artists,” someone questioned.
“Kudos to whoever on the Burlington, Vermont, tourism board [who] convinced Spotify to tell half its users they belong there,” one jokester tweeted.
City government officials were nevertheless enthused by the popularity of their cities in the music world.
Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui told NBC that the data is an “awesome way to take a look at the music that resonates with our community,” and while her year in music looked a little different, she’ll be checking out the other artists.
“Who knows, maybe we’ll incorporate some of these tracks into our next annual citywide dance party!”
John Flanagan, the communications director of Burlington City Arts, told the outlet that the Spotify data shows how the city embraces “inclusivity, not to mention exquisite taste.”
The City of San Luis Obispo’s official social media account wrote, “TFW when “San Luis Obispo” is trending on Twitter because we listen to an eclectic mix of music.”
Even Spotify got in on the fun, acknowledging the popularity of the three cities on social media.
“Hey besties @CityofBerkeley @Burlington_VT @CambMA,” the official Spotify account tweeted.