Spotify Wrapped is Spotify’s annual year review of a listeners music taste, starting from January to late October. Wrapped was first introduced in 2016. Each year, Wrapped’s popularity exceeds the year before, becoming a yearly tradition for Spotify listeners. Other streaming services like Apple Music, who introduced Replay in 2019 which takes many aspects of Wrapped and Pandora, who introduced Playback in 2017 but discontinued in 2023, have tried to capitalize on Wrapped’s success.
Yet, after all these years, Wrapped still stands on top. The popularity of Wrapped does not just come from the listening data, but from the variety of data categories and breakdowns for listeners – making it feel truly personal. In 2018 Wrapped introduced astrological signs depending on your most listened artist, 2019 introduced the post-able format graphic everyone’s come to post, 2020 introduced podcast-listening data, and 2023 introduced a “Sound Town” that assigned listeners a city with their favorite genres/artists and the “Genre Burger” that listed genres as parts of a burger. It is common for everyone to post their top artists, songs, albums, and streaming minutes online to either cringe or show off. Each year brings new categories to share, making listeners look forward to what the next year will bring.
This year is no different with the addition of three new AI experiences. The AI podcast delivers listeners top songs, artists and genres by two AI hosts. DJ: Wrapped is a feature for premium members that provides more commentary into the Wrapped experience. The AI Playlist feature is also a feature for premium members that allows users to enter different prompts to create personalized playlists.
However, the introduction to these new AI experiences and lack of a human feel to listeners’ listening data have stirred controversy from many listeners. Many speculate that Spotify used AI to create the genre titles that replaced the beloved “Genre Burger” from 2023. While others feel that the quality and content are lackluster and mediocre for big name companies like Spotify.
Overall, the disappointment was universal, having many more people come out against Spotify. As a whole, it is entirely up to individual listeners to decide if they want to continue using Spotify or not.
