PROVO, Utah — It’s been one week since the drop of the 2023 Spotify Wrapped.
Each year, the app Spotify collects data on the music you listen to throughout the year. In Spotify Wrapped, the app presents your top genre, song, artist, and other fun facts about your listening habits.
One of the new features of this year’s Wrapped was “sound towns.”
Sound towns are 1,300 random and specific cities from across the globe selected by Spotify, and a lot of people are getting Provo as theirs.
So what is it about Provo’s music scene that so many relate to?
Spotify says the connection is based on two factors: a user’s most-streamed artist of the year and how those artists are streamed in other cities.
FOX 13 News spoke to two music lovers who got Provo: one in Utah and one out-of-state to try and find the common denominator.
Aaron Lawrence is a middle school music teacher in Omaha, Nebraska. His artists in common with Provo were all Broadway stars: Jeremy Jordan, Laura Osnes, and Benn Platt.
“I had no idea where Provo was,” he said. “I was like, ‘Oh, okay. That city, I guess everyone listens to the exact same stuff I did.’ But my girlfriend got the exact same.”
Lawrence’s artist choices make sense matching with the state that originated the Osmonds and some of the most prestigious vocal choirs.
For Devin Bagley of Cottonwood Heights, his artists in common with Provo were indie folk star Noah Kahan and two groups originally from Provo: The Strike and The National Parks.
“It was a little bit more of a let-down because it’s the same state as me. Weird, but I know of get it, some of the artists I have started in Provo,” he said.
Although Bagley and Lawrence don’t have mutual artists, the match-ups seem to be spot-on.
3Hive Record Lounge in Provo knows the city’s music scene very well.
FOX 13 News asked if these results align with the customers they see in their store.
“I think the most popular genres that people come into the record store for is Taylor Swift,” said marketing manager Sarah Bledsoe. “As well as a lot of hip-hop, surprisingly. A lot of Mac Miller, Tyler the Creator, but as well as the sort of indie-acoustic sound like Noah Kahan and Jackson.”
Some of the top “sound towns” in America were Berkeley, California, Burlington, Vermont, and Cambridge, Massachusetts. All of these cities, including Provo, are coincidentally college towns.
