Write it down in your diaries, Burlingtonians. Put it on the calendar, call the cool kids you went to school with and, for the love of God, make sure you post the news online: Spotify has designated Burlington as officially cool.
If you’re scratching your head and wondering what you might have missed, first things first: Jump onto your Spotify account and check out its end-of-year “Wrapped” feature, where the streaming giant compiles personalized roundups of users’ listening habits. A new feature this year is something called “Sound Town,” in which Spotify aggregates listeners’ data to ascertain, um … where they should live? It’s weird. More accurately, Sound Town is supposed to match peoples’ music tastes with cities full of like-minded fans.
Turns out, oodles of Spotify users’ music tastes landed them smack-dab in Burlington. Social media is rife with confused people wondering not only why their tastes seem to align with Vermont’s largest city but also why so many people they knew received the same destination. Two other popular Wrapped destinations are Berkeley, Calif., and Cambridge, Mass. (Shout-outs to the folks getting Provo, Utah. Is there a Mormon club scene we don’t know about?)
“Sound Town was created to show users how their listening habits are shared by communities everywhere,” a Spotify spokesperson explained in a statement to Seven Days. “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. It is objective and entirely driven by a user’s listening history.”
According to the website TechCrunch, 0.6 percent of users have received Burlington as their Sound Town destination out of a possible 1,300 locations. That’s almost eight times what the number should be if users were distributed evenly to each of the locations.
While Spotify didn’t clarify exactly why Burlington has featured so heavily, it did offer some additional interesting, if not massively conclusive tidbits.
“Overall, 2023 was defined by the epic return of major female artists, sonic diversity across the charts, and a global music culture that saw the rise of powerful genres,” the statement read. “Our top lists reflect these trends and the overall expansion of music and podcasts as Spotify continues to grow its user base.”
Indeed, many users and media outlets have opined that the “sonic diversity” Spotify referred to is more direct than the company is letting on. Online LGBTQ magazine Them published a piece titled “Did Your Spotify Wrapped Place You In Burlington, Berkeley, or Cambridge? You May Be Gay.”
The Washington Post checked with Burlington City Arts to see if the City of Burlington had somehow worked out a tourism promotion with Spotify. (It didn’t. Though that would have been some truly outside-the-box thinking for the crew that couldn’t escape the bad press of a giant hole in the ground for several years.)
And many wondered if it might be the Noah Kahan effect. The Vermont-born singer-songwriter enjoyed a breakout year in 2023, scoring both huge Spotify numbers and a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist. While Kahan has never been a part of the Burlington music scene and has made his career largely out of state, it does stand to reason that a lot of people in the Queen City would be streaming his album Stick Season, a love letter to Vermont.
If any of these reasons are the culprit, Spotify isn’t fessing up.
Got something to say?
Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!
