Tag: 2021 Wrapped

2021 Wrapped for Podcasters Shows That More People Are Becoming Audio Creators

2020 was an explosive year for new podcast creation—but 2021 proved to be the year podcasting really hit its stride. New creation hasn’t slowed down one bit, and more than ever, podcasters are getting more creative with their content development and business models. With 1.2 million new podcasts published on Spotify this past year, it’s clear that an increasing number of people are listening to and creating audio. 

This year, we delivered Wrapped for Podcasters to more creators than ever, demonstrating that the creator economy is growing—and rapidly. 

We believe that a huge driver of this growth is accessibility to innovative creation tools. Of the aforementioned 1.2 million new podcasts published on Spotify in 2021, more than 1 million of them were created using Anchor, our all-in-one podcasting platform. Anchor now powers around 75% of all podcasts on Spotify—the vast majority of which are from independent creators—so its user behavior offers a great peek into what’s happening in the world of those up-and-coming podcasters.

Anchor offers more to creators than your basic record-and-upload. In 2021, we began offering a variety of features in Anchor that enable podcasters to create, grow, and monetize their content in ways that had never been possible before. This includes:

We believe innovating on the creation experience has a profound impact on the growth of the overall podcasting creator economy. And when we took a look into the data from 2021, the numbers proved that to be the case.

  • Anchor continues to drive 80% of the new podcasts being published to Spotify every year.
  • These independent shows collectively are driving incredible engagement: In recent months, more than 40% of monthly podcast listeners on Spotify have listened to at least one show created using Anchor.
  • More than 13,000 Anchor-powered shows charted in 2021, making up 35% of the shows on Spotify’s charts this year. 
  • As a result of rolling out these new formats that can’t be experienced anywhere else, the consumption of Anchor-powered shows globally leans toward Spotify, with around 65% of their consumption happening on Spotify.
  • The market for independent podcasters is truly global: The top markets, in terms of total new shows created on Anchor in 2021, were the U.S., Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and India.
  • Central and South America in particular are on the come-up for a thriving creator economy in podcasts: Anchor’s fastest-growing markets in 2021, measured by average monthly increase in new shows, were Peru, Colombia, Argentina, Mexico, and Chile.

We’re excited to see continued progress in the podcast space as creators grow and hit their strides. Stay tuned for more to come in 2022!

Spotify Celebrates Wrapped With A Totally Normal Party for 2021

Photo credits: Getty images

On December 1 we unveiled 2021 Spotify Wrapped, enabling our listeners to reflect—and rejoice—as they got to witness and share what they listened to this year. As this was a year unlike any before, 2021 Wrapped was too. So even after the in-app experience debuted and the top artists and podcasters of the year were revealed, we couldn’t let the Wrapped energy stop there. We wanted to continue to celebrate and connect fans and artists to each other. 

So last night in LA, we brought the Wrapped campaign experience to life in a way only Spotify can with A Totally Normal Party for 2021. The event featured themed audio activations, aura readings from Mystic Michaela, groove-garnering DJs, and a performance from the one and only Gwen Stefani

Musical moments

We kicked off the night with a DJ set from Lost Kings. The LA-based duo, Robert Abisi and Nick Shanholtz, gained momentum online with their catchy remixes of pop hits and are now spinning beats of their own as well.

Afterward, because no Spotify event would be complete without a surprise, the local USC Trojan Marching Band erupted through the curtains in full uniform. They played an instrumental medley of the five most streamed songs on Spotify in 2021: Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license,” Lil Nas X’s “MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name),” The Kid LAROI’s “STAY (with Justin Bieber),” Olivia Rodrigo’s “good 4 u,” and Dua Lipa’s “Levitating”).

The Wait Is Over. Your Spotify 2021 Wrapped Is Here.

What did your 2021 sound like? Did you fall back in love with a past favorite artist, sample a genre you’d never listened to before, or binge true crime podcasts for the first time ever? However you streamed, it was uniquely you, and uniquely 2021. 

Today, in addition to revealing the top music and podcasts streamed globally in 2021, we’re unveiling our annual 2021 personalized Wrapped experience for listeners. It’s inspired by the millions of weird and wonderful ways you listened this year—and by the creators who soundtracked the world around us. 

In a world that continues to keep us on our toes, the 2021 Wrapped experience is full of the known and unknown, with fan-favorite experiences mixing with surprising new ones that connect listeners with each other and their favorite creators. 

Learn More About the Audio Aura in Your Spotify 2021 Wrapped With Aura Reader Mystic Michaela

The songs we listen to and the playlists we create are reflections of us. They make us dance like nobody’s watching, or sing at the top of our lungs. You may not even realize it, but the music you stream matches your individual “Audio Aura”—something you may have seen in your 2021 Wrapped experience

What is an aura? According to aura reader and host of the Know Your Aura with Mystic Michaela podcast, Mystic Michaela, it’s your personal energy signature. Everyone has one, and aura readers see them as a combination of colors, each representative of the traits that make you, you. 

Every year, Spotify gives listeners a personal summary of their listening habits through Wrapped. And this year, for eligible users, Wrapped includes something new: your Audio Aura. 

Like you, audio has energy, so Spotify data curators worked with Mystic Michaela to connect your listening habits in 2021 to the aura spectrum by assigning a color to each of six mood descriptor categories (including “happy,” “calm,” and “hopeful,”) and matching them with tracks on Spotify. 

After we created your personalized 2021 Wrapped experience, we assigned a weight percentage to the two audio “moods” that best represent your listening, and the final product is a swirling gradient of color. Below are the six moods and corresponding hues that could come up in your 2021 Wrapped Audio Aura.

  • Purple: This aura color pairs well with passionate music listeners. Purple auras tune in to get amped up, entertained, and moving while they navigate the twists and turns of their day. 
  • Green: Calm, analytical, and introspective are the traits that describe a green aura. These listeners gravitate toward complex music to tame their fast-moving minds. 
  • Pink: Often described as the hopeless romantics of the aura spectrum, pinks view the world with a sense of optimistic, childlike wonder. 
  • Orange: Oranges are the rebellious and bold type. They share a need for high-energy, confidence-boosting sounds.
  • Yellow: Yellows like their music to align them to the goals of their day, fueling their need for focus, motivation, and self improvement all while reducing any nerves that could get in the way.
  • Blue: Blues are wistful or emotional, and this hue reflects listeners who seek out music to feel their feelings out loud. 

We spoke with Mystic Michaela to learn more about auras, their relationship to music, and how knowing your aura can help you find your authentic self. 

How did you realize you could see and read auras? 

I’ve seen colors around people my entire life. It’s a sense to me, just like smelling. But I didn’t have a formal way of thinking about it until I was a Spanish teacher. I realized that I was differentiating instruction [to my middle school students] based on their aura colors. I saw that children with red auras thrived in competition. I saw that children with yellow auras really needed to focus on grammar. I saw that children with purple auras got the language a lot better when they could create art with it. 

And so through that, I realized, this is much bigger than just colors around people. This is about people understanding themselves and understanding that “I work this way, and you work that way.” Both are OK, but you have to use this information to dive into who you are, not who you think you should be.

How do the Audio Auras provide additional insights to a person’s Wrapped?

When listeners go into their Audio Auras, I really feel like they are going to be able to see more of themselves and have an inward conversation. You know, “Who am I and why do I listen to what I’m listening to? What am I seeking? What is my inner self actually saying?” And I think that’s going to be a really creative and spiritual conversation people can have with themselves, however they want to define that.

One of your primary goals is to help people live their lives authentically. How might a person’s Audio Aura help them do that?

Let’s say I get yellow as one of my colors, because the Audio Aura yellow is very much about self-improvement and motivation and calming one’s nerves. Then I would ask myself, “Is this me, or is this something that I strive toward? What am I calming my nerves about? What parts of my life are requiring that type of energy to come in and help me?”

I think it’s helpful to ask yourself some of those questions, because your Audio Aura reveals the energy you feel comfortable in and also the vibes you want to borrow. 

Throughout our lives, we’re constantly pretending to be somebody [else]. You might wear a different energy color to fit in. But when you put in your earbuds, when you put your playlist together—that’s you. And when you press next, or if you say, “I like that, I’m going to listen to it 10 times,” that’s you. And that’s why I feel so connected to Audio Auras, because whatever that reflects, it’s an extension of yourself. 

Ready for your reading? Head to Spotify.com/Wrapped for your personalized Audio Aura and the full 2021 Wrapped experience.