Audio streaming platform Spotify has announced its annual 2021 Wrapped campaign and personalised user experience.
It has also released the list of top artists, albums, songs, playlists and podcasts in India and across the world.
Eligible users can access their personalised Spotify Wrapped 2021 experience on the Spotify mobile app (iOS and Android). They can also share it across platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter.
The platform has also added some new features for Wrapped. Users can now see new data stories to express their year in audio.
Besides the top artists, genres, songs, podcasts and minutes listened, the personalised Wrapped experience will include features such as 2021: The Movie, audio aura, playing cards, etc.
Spotify's new features
Users will be able to see their top songs paired with classic scenes from a movie as part of Wrapped.
For the Audio Aura feature, Spotify has worked with an aura expert to visualise users' audio aura based on their top two music moods, it said.
The Playing Cards feature is an interactive data-based game that users can play, and then share with their friends.
"We’ll display several statements about your listening this year, and you’ll have to guess which are true," Spotify explained.
With the new Spotify Wrapped 2021: Blend feature launched this year, users can see how their 2021 music taste matches up with friends, stream their blended playlist and share their results on social media.
It has also launched exclusive experiences for top fans including videos from one of more than 170 artists and creators thanking fans for having them in their Wrapped.
These thank you videos will appear if fans have a song by one of the participating artists in their “Your Top Songs 2021” or “Your Artists Revealed” playlists.
"For the very first time, we’ll be rolling out Spotify Clips for Podcasts and fans will be able to view special thank you messages from some of their favourite podcast hosts by visiting a participating show’s page on Spotify," it further added.
The 2021 Wrapped hub is also now available on Spotify. It features a range of personalised, data-driven and editorially curated content.
This includes personalised music and podcast playlists, such as Your Top Songs 2021 and Your Artists Revealed apart from Top Tracks & Artists of 2021.
These are data-driven playlists that feature music from the top artists globally and in a user's local market.
The hub will also include a selection of new podcasts from inspiring creators apart from a curated selection of top podcast episodes throughout the year, it further said.
Spotify has also rolled out its Spotify Wrapped creator experience for podcasters and artists.
"With access to their own individualised Wrapped microsite experience, creators can dive into all the ways in which their fans listened this year through Spotify for Artists and Spotify for Podcasters," it said.
Spotify's India trends
In terms of India trends, Arijit Singh remained the most streamed artist this year while the most streamed song of 2021 was 'Raataan Lambiyan' by Asees Kaur, Jubin Nautiyal, Tanishk Bagchi.
India’s top 10 most streamed albums in 2021 were Shershaah, Kabir Singh, Moosetape, Love Yourself, 'Answer', Love Aaj Kal, Justice, BE, MAP OF THE SOUL : 7, Master and Future Nostalgia.
The three most-streamed female artists were Shreya Ghoshal, Neha Kakkar and Asees Kaur.
The top five genres of.music that have seen the highest year-on-year growth in India were Concurso De Talentos Argentino, Indie Rock Italiano, Kyrgyz Hip Hop, Sinhala Indie, and Musica Ponta-Grossense.
Top Hits Hindi was the most-streamed playlist in India this year with 636k followers, nearly double from the previous year, when this playlist was still at the top.
It also released podcast trends for India.
The most popular podcasts on Spotify in India this year are: The Mythpat Podcast, The Ranveer Show, The Stories of Mahabharata, Naallanaa Murukku - The RJ Balaji Podcast, Srimad Bhagavad-Gita Adhyaya 1, The Joe Rogan Experience, Speak Better English with Harry, On Purpose with Jay Shetty, Bhaskar Bose (Hindi Thriller Podcast) and Unconventional Ghalib.
Similar to last year, 50 per cent of the top 10 podcasts consumed were Originals from Spotify.
Four of the top ten most streamed episodes are from The Mythpat Podcast while seven of the top ten most streamed episodes are from Spotify Originals.
Furthermore, Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Jaipur featured among the top ten cities that stream podcasts.
Spotify's brand campaign for the experience will run across traditional and digital OOH, connected TV, online video, social media, web and the Spotify app in 33 markets worldwide while the app experience will be available to users in over 100 markets.
"In India, the campaign centres around the theme of ‘totally normal for 2021’, and includes traditional TV advertisements as well," it said.