This time of year, many people post their Spotify ‘Wrapped’ lists, revealing which songs they played the most over the past 12 months.
But a new app uses artificial intelligence to tell you if your taste in music is any good or if, to quote one person’s results, it’s ‘women-of-a-certain-age-stan-suburban-80s-music-on-dramamine bad.’
The online culture magazine The Pudding fed millions of indicators of what it deemed objectively good music, including Pitchfork reviews, record store recommendations ‘and subreddits you’ve never heard of.’
In addition to rating your taste in tracks, the ‘How Bad Is Your Spotify?’ app will tell you which songs you play too much and which artists you are obsessed with ‘to an uncomfortable extent.’
Launching on Wednesday, it’s proven successful enough to trend on Twitter.
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Logging into Spotify via the ‘How Bad is Your Spotify’ allows the site to review and judge your ‘awful’ taste in music
‘My spotify AI really came at me,’ tweeted one Taylor Swift fan, who was told her Spotify playlist was ‘folklore-evermore-dumbledore-witch-pop-eyeliner-and-screaming-cottagecore bad’
Another shared they had been told, due to their constant playing of Eminem and Blink 182, that their playlist was ‘moms-spaghetti-high-school-graduation-middle-aged-pop-punk bad.’
Depending on how high traffic is, it may take a few moments for it to assess your taste in music.
The ‘How Bad Is Your Spotify?’ program’s AI was developed for The Pudding by freelance copywriter and creative director Mike Lacher and visual journalist Matt Daniels.
Depending on the acts on your playlist, the sophisticated AI might ask if you’re ‘okay’
After a few seconds, it spits out a harsh assessment of your musical tastes
To get shamed by the app, visitors need to log into Spotify through the Pudding website.
The AI promises it’s only scanning your music, though it’s not clear if it’s also datamining your Spotify for another purpose.
Daniels admits the popularity of the program has also caused the site to crash.
While it downloads your playlist, the site checks to see if you ‘really listen’ to certain songs.
The system also lists the songs you play too much and the artists you stan ‘to an uncomfortable extent,’ before revealing how basic, or trendy, you are
The program requires users to log into Spotify via The Pudding website. It’s not clear if the data will be used for any other purposes
It also invites you to play a round of f—, marry, kill with three artists that make regular appearances on your Spotify.
If you listen to mopey acts like Phoebe Bridgers or Belle and Sebastian, it might even ask, ‘is everything okay?’
Eventually, users get a salty reading of their playlists and the artists they’ve played ad nauseum, along with an explanation of what percent ‘basic,’ or trendy, they are.
After one analysis, the AI declared, ‘I need to go sit in silence for a second. Shutting down.’
Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny was the most streamed artist on Spotify in 2020, with over 8.3 billion listens
As for Wrapped, Spotify’s own review of music trends in 2020, rapper Bad Bunny was the most streamed artist on Earth, with over 8.3 billion listens.
Not surprisingly, his album YHLQMDLG was the most streamed, with over 3.3 billion plays.
The most-streamed song of 2020 was The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights,’ with almost 1.6 billion streams, followed by Tones And I’s 2019 hit ‘Dance Monkey’ and Roddy Ricch’s ‘The Box’ grabbing second and third place, respectively.