For many music lovers, the launch of Spotify Wrapped is one of the most exciting events of the year.
If you’re not cringing too much at your results, you might be tempted to share your Spotify Wrapped on social media.
However, this could reveal more about yourself than you might think.
According to scientists, the genres we prefer and the way we consume music can reveal some surprising details about our personalities.
If Eminem was your top artist this year, it could be a warning sign of a psychopathic personality.
Swifties, on the other hand, are more likely to be agreeable, extroverted and forgiving – but less creative than other fans.
And while fans of metal might get a bad reputation, research has shown that they are really gentle introverts who let off steam with aggressive music.
Meanwhile, if you listened to thousands of new songs this year, experts say you are likely to be open-minded, curious, and a little bit neurotic.
Before you share your Spotify Wrapped to social media, remember that your taste in music might reveal a lot more about your personality than you think
Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ was found to be the favourite song of people with psychopathic tendencies. However, most rap fans are generally outgoing risk-takers, with a strong sense of self-confidence and a willingness to try new things
What does your top artist say about you?
If you’re a fan of upbeat pop music, Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, or Charli XCX are likely to be among your top artists this year.
Across a number of studies, fans of pop have consistently been found to score higher on personality tests for agreeability and extraversion.
For example, one influential 2003 study from the University of Texas at Austin found that ‘individuals who enjoy listening to upbeat and conventional music are cheerful, socially outgoing, reliable, enjoy helping others, see themselves as physically attractive, and tend to be relatively conventional.’
While fans of pop score highly for some positive social traits, they are also more likely to be closed-minded and conservative in their views.
The same 2003 study found a negative correlation between pop music enjoyment and openness, the personality trait which determines imagination, creativity, and curiosity about the world.
Likewise, studies have found that country music fans often display these personality attributes to an even greater extent.
If Luke Combs or even Beyoncé’s ‘Cowboy Carter’ have been on repeat this year it could be a signal of a highly conventional personality and lower levels of openness to new experiences.
Fans of upbeat pop artists like Taylor Swift (pictured) are likely to be agreeable, outgoing, and enjoy helping others. But they may be less creative and imaginative than other music fans
Those who love country musicians like Luke Combs (pictured) are likely to be more closed-minded but have higher rates of reliability, emotional stability, and determination
However, a 2010 study published in The American Journal of Psychology also showed that country fans were likely to be hard-working, outgoing and dependable.
Enjoyment of country music was found to correlate with emotional stability, extraversion, and conscientiousness – a trait which relates to goal orientation, respect for authority, and determination.
On the other hand, if your top artists included John Coltrane, Nubia Garcia, or the Ezra Collective, experts say you are likely to be much more open-minded.
In 2022 Dr David Greenberg, of the University of Cambridge, published research showing that a love of intense, sophisticated music like jazz was strongly linked to openness, creativity, and imagination.
Dr Greenberg’s study even showed that these trends persisted across cultures, with jazz fans around the world displaying similar attributes.
Speaking at the time, Dr Greenberg said: ‘People may be divided by geography, language and culture, but if an introvert in one part of the world likes the same music as introverts elsewhere, that suggests music could be a very powerful bridge.’
But it isn’t all good news for jazz fans, as a study published this year by researchers in the Netherlands found a strong correlation between a taste for jazz and levels of neuroticism.
People who score highly for this personality trait are likely to be more emotionally unstable and experience greater amounts of sadness, anxiety, and irritability.
If jazz artists like Nubia Garcia (pictured) it could mean that you are open-minded, creative, and imaginative. But jazz fans are also likely to be less emotionally stable and experience higher rates of anxiety
Other styles of music which are often associated with neuroticism are intense or aggressive genres like punk, metal, and hard rock.
Due to the heavy style and dark themes of the genre, metal fans often get branded as unpleasant or violent.
And some studies do suggest that this reputation isn’t entirely undeserved.
Dr Greenberg’s research found that people who scored highly for neuroticism tended to enjoy intense musical styles.
He suggests that this could be because people suffering from ‘inner angst and frustration’ use heavy music as a cathartic means of blowing off steam.
Likewise, research conducted by Spotify in 2020 found that fans of Death Metal tended to score lower for agreeability on self-assessed personality tests.
So, if Slayer, Slipknot, Black Sabbath, or Idles featured heavily in your top artists, experts say you may be less emotionally stable than other music fans.
However, this is far from the entire picture as other studies reveal that most metal fans are creative, introverted, curious, and gentle.
Despite their bad reputation, fans of metal bands like Slayer (pictured) are actually curious, gentle, and introverted although they do score lower for agreeability than other fans
Likewise, there is no evidence that exposure to violence in music leads to any increased tendencies towards violence.
In one study participants listened to an extreme metal track and then tested how desensitized they were to violence – then compared the results to what happened when they listened to ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams.
The researchers found no evidence that the music desensitized listeners.
Lead author of the study, Professor Bill Thompson, from the Australian University said at the time: ‘The fans are nice people. They’re not going to go out and hurt someone.’
Finally, whether you have been caught up in the Drake and Kendrick Lamar feud or enjoy old-school classics like A Tribe Called Quest, fans of rap tend to be outgoing risk-takers with a curiosity about the world and a willingness to try new things.
Writing in his 2003 paper, Dr Peter Rentfrow, of the University of Texas at Austin, says that people who enjoy energetic upbeat rap tracks ‘tend to be talkative, full of energy, are forgiving, see themselves as physically attractive, and tend to eschew conservative ideals.’
Likewise, subsequent studies have shown that rap fans tend to be more self-confident and score higher for extraversion.
However, research has also shown that rap fans are far from a homogenous group.
Spotify’s 2022 research found that those who spent more time listening to ‘brooding’ songs like Drake’s ‘Take Care’ had lower levels of emotional stability and greater neuroticism.
On the other hand, fans who enjoyed ‘aggressive’ music like ‘Boss’ by Lil Pump tended to score lower for agreeability.
But there is particularly bad news for fans of Eminem as a taste for his music could be a sign of a dark personality.
A 2017 study found that fans of Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ and Blackstreet’s ‘No Diggity’ were enjoyed by people with the highest scores for psychopathy.
Meanwhile, the least psychopathic people enjoyed Sia’s ‘Titanium’ and ‘My Sharona’ by The Knack.
What does your listening style say about you?
Of course, your Spotify Wrapped tells you more than just your top artists.
Music fans also get to see how many minutes they spent listening to music in the past year and how many different songs they listened to.
If you spend a huge amount of time listening to music this year, experts say this could be a sign of a neurotic personality. Extroverts, on the other hand, typically spend less time listening to music than others
And, just like genres, these details contain a treasure trove of information for psychologists.
In 2020, researchers from the Linz Institute of Technology, Austria gathered the listening data of more than 1,300 Last.fm users to build a dataset of over 35 million listening events.
They found that one of the strongest predictors of personality type was actually how many songs users listened to and how much time they spent listening to music.
If you listen to thousands of different songs last year, the researchers say this could be a sign of an open-minded and creative personality.
The researchers write: ‘People scoring high on this trait, and hence more likely to try new things, listen to a higher number of unique tracks with a higher preference for niche tracks.’
However, if you spent lots of time listening to music this year it could mean you have higher levels of anxiety and sadness.
Higher levels of music consumption were correlated with higher levels of the neuroticism personality trait.
On the other hand, extroverts tend to spend less time listening to music than other people – presumably because they are too busy getting out and having fun.
