On December 1, 2022, Spotify rocked the personality type world (if that means the world in my head) by releasing 16 personalities of music listeners, with four-letter codes and labels signifying those personalities. Since I was working on a book update already, I might as well take my one chance at becoming an expert on a topic people are actually talking about. That’s, um…not a usual thing for me.
If you want an expert to code the personalities 1-to-1, here is a Love Who video. In talks with other interested folks, and looking at what Spotify is measuring, I don’t think there’s going to be a 1-to-1 correspondence. But the ideas are still important; I just want to build them from Spotify’s ground up rather than start from MBTI.
I’m also coming at this from a different angle than most of the MBTI analysts: my Spotify Wrapped results are for myself as an artist rather than as a listener (I don’t use Spotify much as a listener; I’m primarily a Bandcamp purchaser). My listeners are Nomads in part because they’re drawn to new music, but…duh. I’ve been this artist project since 2021, so of course they’re drawn to new music. If the Rolling Stones excitedly opened their Spotify Wrapped, they’d see people being drawn to timeless music. So Spotify even comes with its own measurement biases, analogous to how online MBTI tests seem to favor N and T results.
Spotify’s cognitive functions
Familiarity: “Do you mostly listen to your favorite artists over and over?”
Exploration: “Do you sample a lot of new artists?”
The way this is set up, we’re ultimately talking about graph shapes – which makes sense for how Spotify would generate this data for everyone. They’re setting up measurement variables and letting those do the work. So it’s probably some measurement like, “what percentage of plays come from this person’s top 10 artists?” A high number gets you Familiarity; a low number gets you Exploration.
Loyalty: “Do you find yourself going back to the same tracks and playing them on repeat?”
Variety: “Do you find like to spin through a lot of music before repeating?”
This measurement is clearly set up the same way, but for songs instead of artists. If it’s your top 50 songs getting a high enough percentage of your total plays, you get Loyalty; otherwise, you get Variety.
It’s these two functions that make me hesitant about mapping MBTI to Spotify. Artist versus song is relevant to Spotify data, but MBTI doesn’t care to distinguish that.
If I had to pick, I’d call Familiarity/Loyalty Ni and Exploration/Variety Ne. You might think of Familiarity and Loyalty as Si-aligned values, but I think the next pair is where we experience that. In Spotify’s context, I think Familiarity and Loyalty show a singleness of purpose for one’s Spotify that maps onto Ni. While Si users might regularly have a few favorites on Spotify, it is for a different reason, i.e., the next pair.
Timelessness: “Do you wander the vast catalog of all the music ever made?”
Newness: “Do you listen to brand new music right when it comes out?”
I think this maps closest to Si v. Se. Timelessness doesn’t mind listening to new music, not at all; it just takes its place as a slice of the pie with all the other slices. And if brand new music comes out, there isn’t some compelling urge to dive in; it can wait a little while.
This will be doing the same sort of if-more-than-X% measurement but for year of song, or maybe looking at days since it was released.
Lastly,
Commonality: “Do you listen to mostly popular artists along with millions of fellow fans?”
Uniqueness: “Do you look deeper for someone less well known?”
This is the pair that gives away Spotify’s game on how it’s measuring. If you listen to X% of songs from artists with at least 1,000,000 followers, you’ll get Commonality; otherwise, you’ll get Uniqueness.
While I’m not a Spotify listener much, I do frequently check the monthly Spotify listenership of my favorite songs (to compare to my own artist listener count – a vain, ego-stroking thing to do, but I’m an insecure musician after all). The median monthly listenership of the artists making my 200 favorite songs (counting artists with multiple songs multiple times) is around 51,000. So it seems that, definitionally, I don’t fit under Commonality. 18 of my favorite 200 songs are from 1,000,000+ artists; 20 of my favorite 200 songs are from artists with fewer monthly listeners than me at my peak (815). That says Uniqueness to me.
I initially read this as Te v. Ti, but I think it can also be Fe v. Fi. That’s confusing, isn’t it? But this speaks to how differently different people use music. Te might be drawn to common music because it’s been demonstrated to work. Elvis Presley’s compilation album 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong is an appeal to Te. (My Ti says “not only can they be wrong, but it’s likely they are.” I even got a bit irritated at the statement while typing this parenthetical.) Fe might be drawn to common music because it shows the group’s shared preference. If a Te-dom and Fe-dom are in charge of the music at a party, they might end up going for Commonality music because it will work, but what they mean by “it will work” is different. (Also, definitionally more people have heard the Commonality music, so that independently increases the odds anyway.)
Where I suspect Te- and Fe-doms diverge on their Spotify party playlists, if they’re picking for the same party, is after the first few agreed picks – say, a half-hour into the mix. I’m having difficulty packaging my thought properly, but here goes:
- Te is more likely to pick songs that have worked at some point and are on theme, regardless of whether the partygoers are familiar with them.
- Fe is more likely to pick songs that the partygoers are likely to know.
They might both be choosing from the same batch of popular songs, but one is first connecting the songs to the party, and the other is first connecting the songs to the people. Here’s an example: suppose there’s a party for a bunch of people who grew up in the 1960s and loved Roy Orbison in his prime. An Fe-dom, starting from a people-first mindset, will populate the playlist with contemporaries of Roy Orbison. A Te-dom, starting from a function-first mindset, might do the same thing, but they’re also more willing to include later generations of artists influenced by Roy Orbison, like Chris Isaak. The partygoers aren’t likely to know “Wicked Game” or “Somebody’s Crying,” but I can see how they easily fit the mood of the party; a Te-dom will agree. The Fe-dom might balk.
So to summarize, I’m seeing the following overlaps:
Fe and Te with Commonality;
Fi and Ti with Uniqueness;
Ne with Exploration and Variety;
Ni with Familiarity and Loyalty;
Se with Newness; and
Si with Timelessness.
Spotify’s 16 personalities
Semi-keen eyes will see that my analysis means that Spotify’s codes can’t overlap with MBTI’s precisely, because Fe and Te are associated with the same value, and it’s possible for someone to have both Ne and Ni. So here’s what I’ve done to address that and map them out as best as possible:
- Take your dominant function and lock its letter(s) in. That will be your strongest Spotify listening trait.
- Repeat going down the stack, ignoring any functions that contradict. Each time you repeat, you are a bit less likely to be locked in as that trait.
As a reminder, here are the pairs in the order Spotify personality types present them:
E/F (Exploration/Familiarity)
N/T (Newness/Timelessness)
V/L (Variety/Loyalty)
C/U (Commonality/Uniqueness)
My approach means that two personality types are equally likely to be a given type, and that some types are more likely than some other types. I don’t see an inherent problem with that; just because Spotify has 16 types doesn’t imply they’re equally likely types. But while I’m only doing a full writeup of the 4 most cogent types, I’ll try to place the most likely landing spots of the others while we’re here, for the sake of completeness.
ETVC: The Musicologist
“You’re a buff of the beats. An aficionado of sound. You’re in tune with music’s past and present, gravitating towards songs that stand the test of time.”
I have SJs as most likely to land here. The Fe/Te dominance of the extroverted ones means that the C is strongest, while the Si dominance of the introverted ones means that the T is strongest. The ISxJs having a feeling/thinking pair in the middle of their stack means that the C has high chance of being a U instead – or at least a higher chance than the ESxJs have.
A lot of music history channels do seem to have these types running them. I haven’t watched much (if any) Professor of Rock videos, but he gets a lot of interviews and discussions involving ‘70s and ‘80s music, and it seems he prefers the era. He’s got a video called “This CRYPTIC 70s Classic is THE STANDARD THAT EVERY Song is MEASURED Against” that has over 200,000 views (and a thumbnail declaring THIS SONG HAS NO EQUAL). As an NP rather than SJ, these are not the words, the sentiment, or the capitalization I would use in discussing music (you’ve figured that out by now). While I do consider several songs classics, it’s not much of a factor in how I discuss them. But it is for the Musicologist, given that they look for “songs that stand the test of time.”
It makes a lot of sense to me that these societal elements of recognition for the music (maybe not full popularity, but getting past a threshold of popularity – “minimum standards”) would appeal to the SJ.
ETVU: The Time Traveler
“You’re like a musical time traveler, a sonic historian. You seek out music that’s new to you, regardless of whether it’s new to the rest of the world.”
I’ve got all NPs as the most likely to be this type. For the ENTPs and ENFPs, that dominant Ne means that Exploration and Variety – the E and the V – are the most likely part of their makeup, while the INTPs and INFPs will have the Uniqueness U as the most likely part. On both sides, Timelessness – apparently based on Se/Si – is the weakest and therefore the most likely to flip.
Because the ENxPs have a parent-child F/T relationship, rather than a dominant-inferior one, they have a higher chance of flipping the U into C (Commonality). This overall makes sense to me; an extrovert is just more likely to be out and about in the bit of the world that finds the more common stuff.
FNLC: The Enthusiast
“You’re a super fan. When your favorite artist releases new music, you’re among the first to know, going above and beyond to show your support.”
This seems to correlate most with the NJs – Commonality being most important for the ENxJs and Familiarity/Loyalty being most important for the INxJs. If you think of Spotify’s Loyalty like an Ni-dom’s loyalty to a vision of the future, it lines up well enough.
The INxJs might flip that C to a U with some frequency.
FNLU: The Devotee
“When you love an artist, you really love them. You’re the kind of fan that knows all the words to the hits, the deep cuts, and every song in between.”
I’m not sure how much semantic daylight exists between the FNLC and FNLU. Nevertheless, this seems to line up best with SPs. ESxPs would go strongest with Newness, and ISxPs would most prioritize Uniqueness. This holds up with the ones I have in my life, at least. The ESxPs might flip the U to a C.
Charts
I hope this chart is useful for showing the distinctions. Because I’m linking stack position with strength of Spotify letter preference, my secondary/tertiary/etc. choices are based on which Spotify letters are associated with lower MBTI functions.
In the first chart, I’ve underlined where each type is most prominent. Put another way, while an ENxP is the most likely ENVC, more ENxPs are likely to be other types.
| MBTI | Dominant | Likely Spotify Types | |||||
| ENFJ ENTJ | C (Commonality) | FNLC | FTLC | ENLC | FNVC | ETLC | FTVC |
| ENFP ENTP | E/V (Exploration/Variety) | ETVU | ETVC | ENVU | ENVC | ||
| ESFJ ESTJ | C (Commonality) | ETVC | FTVC | ETLC | FTLC | ||
| ESFP ESTP | N (Newness) | FNLU | FNLC | ENLU | ENVU | FNVC | FNVU |
| INFJ INTJ | F/L (Familiarity/Loyalty) | FNLC | FNLU | FTLC | FTLU | ||
| INFP INTP | U (Uniqueness) | ETVU | ENVU | FTVU | FNVU | ETLU | ENLU |
| ISFJ ISTJ | T (Timelessness) | ETVC | ETVU | FTVC | FTVU | ETLC | ETLU |
| ISFP ISTP | U (Uniqueness) | FNLU | ENLU | FNVU | ENVU | ||
Arranging this from the other direction:
| This Spotify Type | Is Likely | Description |
| ENLC (Voyager) | ENFJ ENTJ | You expand your world through sound. You’re like a musical globetrotter. Or a music-filled blowfish. Your call. |
| ENLU (Nomad) | ISFP ISTP | You’re a sonic explorer that listens far and wide, but once you find a song or artist you love, it’s with you always. Kind of like a musical souvenir. |
| ENVC (Early Adopter) | ENFP ENTP | You’ve got your finger on the pulse of new music, always seeking the next hot thing. If a song is trending, you’re on it. |
| ENVU (Adventurer) | INFP INTP | You’re a seeker of sound. You venture out into the unknown, searching for fresher artists, deeper cuts, newer tracks – especially gems yet to be found. |
| ETLC (Top Charter) | ESFJ ESTJ | You love a hit song – the kind of track that everyone knows the words to. If music is climbing the charts, you’re sure to have it blasting. |
| ETLU (Maverick) | INFP INTP | You know who you are as a listener. While everyone’s bathing in the mainstream, you’re frolicking in that sidestream. |
| ETVC (Musicologist) | ESFJ ESTJ ISFJ ISTJ | You’re a buff of the beats. An aficionado of sound. You’re in tune with music’s past and present, gravitating towards songs that stand the test of time. |
| ETVU (Time Traveler) | ENFP ENTP INFP INTP | You’re like a musical time traveler, a sonic historian. You seek out music that’s new to you, regardless of whether it’s new to the rest of the world. |
| FNLC (Enthusiast) | ENFJ ENTJ INFJ INTJ | You’re a super fan. When your favorite artist releases new music, you’re among the first to know, going above and beyond to show your support. |
| FNLU (Devotee) | ESFP ESTP ISFP ISTP | When you love an artist, you really love them. You’re the kind of fan that knows all the words to the hits, the deep cuts, and every song in between. |
| FNVC (Fan Clubber) | ESFP ESTP | You’re the type of fan that artists dream of. When you love an artist, you support them with your full heart. |
| FNVU (Specialist) | ISFP ISTP | You’re selective with the music and artists you listen to, but you’ve got lots of love to go round. Once you decide you like an artist, you’re all in. |
| FTLC (Connoisseur) | ENFJ ENTJ | You’ve got taste that people can get behind. Your music preferences are proven by popularity and time. |
| FTLU (Replayer) | INFJ INTJ | You’re a comfort listener. You stick with the songs you like, by the artists you like, from whenever and wherever. Why rock the boat? |
| FTVC (Jukeboxer) | ESFJ ESTJ | You don’t just have one favorite song, you have many. And you love listening to them all, excited to queue up what’s next. |
| FTVU (Deep Diver) | INFP INTP | When you love an artist, you dive deep into their catalogs, taking in all the sights and sounds you discover along the way. |
Next part: Conclusion
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