Sara Ramírez is 31 years old, works managing networks for a veterinary insurance company and, according to Spotify, over the last year she has spent around 35% of her waking time listening to music. What Sara has achieved – and she says it proudly when we talk on the phone – is that her life has a soundtrack.
Like her, who has reached 108,000 minutes, many users have reached impressive numbers in the 2024 Spotify Wrapped: 50,000, 70,000, 100,000 or even 200,000 minutes. And that’s taking into account that in this annual summary the music application only collects listening data from January 1 to October 31. That is to say: only ten months are counted. What does this data reveal about us? Should we celebrate that never in history has so much music been heard? Or should we regret that silence has never been heard so little?
Before delving into these questions, we are going to delve into the consumption habits of these inveterate music lovers. Marta Escudero, a twenty-something who works at an advertising agency, has reached 95,000 minutes in 2024, the equivalent of playing music uninterruptedly for 66 days. He assures that he did not expect to reach such a high figure: last year he added 80,000 minutes and he did not think he could surpass it. Listen to music from the moment you get up until you go to bed: while you work, walk down the street, play sports or read. He only stops using Spotify when he’s with other people, and the plan—increasingly less frequent—includes being silent. “I have sometimes fallen asleep with Spotify on,” she admits.
These high levels of sound are not achieved without personal and material circumstances that allow it. In Marta’s case, it has been a high workload, combined with many afternoons locked up at home to finish her final degree project that she had pending. “What this figure has confirmed for me is that I have led a rather hermit-like life this year,” he explains. For Sara, for example, it helps her to live alone and telework. Has an Alexa [el asistente virtual por voz de Amazon] in the kitchen and another in the living room, and he assures that music always plays in his house. They both agree that the only time they walk down the street without being accompanied by a soundtrack is when they forget their headphones or the battery runs out.
What this figure has confirmed for me [95.000 minutos] It’s just that I’ve led quite a hermit’s life this year.
Marta Escudero
— Spotify user
This is something that never happens to Héctor Villanueva, another great 29-year-old music consumer. “99% of the time I’m walking down the street I wear headphones; If I forget them, I come home to get them even if I’m late,” he says via WhatsApp. This year, he has had Spotify playing for exactly 70,577 minutes, although it is not his record. He works in an office seven hours a day, and for 80% of that time he wears his helmet. Just eating, having dinner or having breakfast, he prefers to leave the songs aside and consume other types of content. He has no problem considering himself “totally dependent on music.”
Laura San Juan, a 25-year-old music school teacher, who this year has reached 50,000 minutes on Spotify’s Wrapped, defines herself in the same way with the song your glasses by Karol G as the most listened to song, and who claims to listen to music almost all the time, sometimes even while sleeping. “I do feel dependent on music,” he says by phone. “For me, it is my life. The only thing is that this dependence on constant activity is now linked to the rapid consumption of music, and that is not my case.”
Is there a correct way to consume music? A 16th century alchemist named Paracelsus famously concluded that “everything is poison and nothing is poison; “Only the dose makes the poison.” This is equivalent to stating that no substance or activity is intrinsically harmful without considering the amount in which it is consumed or carried out. Every substance has a toxic dose and a harmless dose. Does the same happen with music? Is there a consumption threshold above which the effects of music become harmful to the listener?
99% of the time I’m walking down the street I wear headphones; If I forget, I come home to get them even if I’m late.
Hector Villanueva
— Spotify user
The tenor and musical popularizer José Manuel Zapata declares himself a fervent defender of “living with an eternal soundtrack.” Because music, he says, has a great healing power that improves our lives. “Imagine going a week without music, without listening to a single tune on the news. What would happen? We would still be alive, yes, because it is neither water nor air, but time would become eternal, and the days would seem twice as long.” In his opinion, it is admissible to say that times have never been as good as these, in which music is always there, available at any time. “For me it is not Before Christ and After Christ, but Before Spotify and After Spotify. This platform has changed our lives. It seems like spectacular progress to me, because now music is infinite, it is free and available to everyone.”
Sara, whose most listened to song this year has been Girl, so confusing from Charli XCX, agrees with this opinion: “You don’t have to worry so much about everything. There’s nothing wrong with listening to a lot of music, it doesn’t affect my health. Sometimes I think about how blessed I am to have been born in a time with this infinite access to music. It is an illogical beauty.” He admits that, in a way, spending a large part of the day connected to a platform is an example of the digital consumerism that affects our society. But she feels happy in this dynamic: “I live in this super frenetic world, but I feel in tune with that freneticism. I love consuming a lot of TikTok, a lot of Spotify, a lot of Instagram… and even more if I could. I agree with consuming to death. I’m probably a little addicted to overstimulation, but I don’t care.”
The fact that we live with a constant soundtrack does not only refer to the amount of music we consume, but also to how it alters our perception of reality, creating an emotional filter that dramatizes or beautifies everyday life. Any street can be transformed into the setting of a movie. “Music is the salt of our emotions,” says Zapata. “When you want to enhance a feeling, you turn to it. I have never been able to be sad and play a bachata. I need to tear my veins as God commands, take sadness to the limit, savor it intensely. It is a commitment to truly live, without half measures.”
A place for silence
The other side of the coin is the one who longs for a quieter life, and a more conscious way of consuming music. Zapata himself recognizes that silence also has its importance. “In fact, just look at the scores of Bach or Beethoven to discover that silence is music,” he defends. Marta, for her part, admits that she sometimes feels overwhelmed by the constant background noise. “Sometimes I turn off the music because I feel like I have a thousand things on my mind and I need to listen to the silence… or even the noise of the cars.” Laura also recognizes that, at times, she becomes saturated from living in a constant sound atmosphere. “It’s like when you smell too many colognes and you need to smell coffee,” he explains. At such times, he chooses to switch to other genres, such as classical music, or simply stay silent.
Music is the salt of our emotions. When you want to enhance a feeling, you turn to it. I have never been able to be sad and play a bachata. I need to tear my veins as God intended
Jose Manuel Zapata
— tenor and musical popularizer
Elena Hernández, volunteer in the Más que Silencio project, claims the need for a sound break. The initiative in which he participates is responsible for the opening of a center located near the Plaza de España, in Madrid, with the purpose of offering, free of charge, a space of calm in the middle of the noise of the city. For Hernández, who is part of the Dominican Congregation, silence is essential: “It brings serenity, balance. It allows you to breathe, to be present, to recognize yourself in what you are experiencing,” he says. “Silence helps to discern, to not live on autopilot.”
Technological development, with inventions such as wireless headphones, speakers or music platforms that offer an almost infinite supply of songs, has filled our lives with sound. However, it is not unreasonable to affirm that the progressive increase in musical consumption has ended up diminishing the importance of music. Hernández wonders who, nowadays, sits on the couch to listen to a song with the same attention with which they settle under a blanket to watch a movie. “Music has become a very familiar character, yes, but almost always a secondary actor.”
Being silent is a challenge because it confronts you with what you are and forces you to look at your own reality. And you have to know what to do with it
Elena Hernandez
— volunteer of the Más Que Silencio project
Listening to music excessively, says Hernández, can lead us to disconnect from ourselves and lose what is essential: “Sometimes we use background noise to avoid meeting ourselves. Coming home and automatically turning on music or television makes you miss important things.” Furthermore, he points out that living with silence can be a challenge: “It is not always pleasant. Being silent is a challenge because it confronts you with who you are and forces you to look at your own reality. And you have to know what to do with that.”
This does not imply, even for this Dominican nun, that music stops being one of life’s greatest gifts, nor that technology has not devised new and amazing ways to enjoy it. Zapata talks about gift songs: those that a good friend, aware that you are not at your best, sends you via WhatsApp one afternoon with a link to Spotify. Or that other one that someone impatient forces you to listen to immediately, holding your cell phone to your ear in the corner of a bar—how annoying!—but which, to your surprise, ends up becoming a beautiful song that will be among your favorites of the Spotify Wrapped of 2025.
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