A person’s taste in music is something that is almost completely unique to themselves and can often come with a sense of pride. Sharing this unique aspect of yourself and connecting with others over similarities or differences can be a rare joy for music lovers. Music streaming platform Spotify has effectively facilitated this celebration of both community and individuality with their yearly release of Spotify Wrapped. But after eight years, does the anticipation still match the reward?
Released annually since 2016, Spotify Wrapped is a personalized Instagram story-style slideshow showcasing an analysis of your music-listening habits over the course of the past year using data the app has collected. An omniscient messenger shows listeners their top five artists listened to, their top five songs, their top genres and how many minutes listened to in total, just to name the biggest highlights. On the internet, sharing your stats from Spotify Wrapped have become a tradition for music lovers.
In addition to their most basic statistics, Spotify Wrapped also includes new, unique sections each year that further categorize one’s music taste. Examples of these sections include “audio auras” based on a selection of preferred genres, identifying cities that have the most similar listening habits as the listener, and telling users their MBTI style “listening personality.” Spotify also has the option for artists to record videos thanking their audience for listening that can be played while browsing one’s Wrapped.
Since Spotify Wrapped debuted and Spotify’s user base has jumped into the hundreds of millions since, anticipation for it on the internet has increased each year. Though it has been released closer to the end of the calendar year in the past, for the last two years, without any advance announcement, Spotify Wrapped has been released on November 30. As a result, when 2024’s Wrapped was neither out nor announced until four days later, users were already anxious.
After many years of overall positivity surrounding the event, 2024’s Spotify Wrapped has led to disappointment. Many aspects that had been included in previous releases weren’t anywhere to be found, like top genres or top albums. Many also observed that their data didn’t line up with or turned out to be wildly different from what they would have expected. Spotify’s recent experiments with generative AI features on their platform compiling personalized playlists and listening recommendations have led many to suspect that their data may be inaccurate at best, or compromised at worst.
“My top artist was someone who wasn’t even in my top 20 songs,” Gabriella Knudsen (12) said.
In response to the rise of generative AI being used in entertainment, Spotify has embraced it as a potential tool to be used on their platform. Spotify has since introduced several AI-powered features, such as AI DJs, playlists created via prompts to AI and AI art for playlist covers. This has caused varied responses from its users. Some have found use in these features while others against the use of generative AI argue that these features don’t add anything to a listener’s experience. The increase of generative AI in place of artists or work done by humans further pushes these people out of potential jobs as they are replaced, not to mention its environmental impact.
“I’ve tried the AI DJ, and it seemed interesting at first, but it wasn’t very specific in recommending songs that I liked,” Leo Pham (12) said. “It seemed better to scroll to the bottom of the playlist and choose recommended songs there.”
While there hasn’t been any real confirmation as to the reason behind this year’s perceived year-end failure, many have speculated that the writing had been on the wall. In December of 2023, Spotify laid off approximately 17% of its employees—nearly 1500 people. As expected, this resulted in decreased productivity over the beginning months of 2024 and a significant decrease in income. However, many have also pointed out the significance of one specific employee who had been let go.
Glenn McDonald, Spotify’s former data alchemist, is the creator of Every Noise at Once, a website that compiled thousands of artists and songs into hundreds of unique genres onto a simple word map. Using his extensive archive of musical genres, McDonald was responsible for defining and organizing the genres on Spotify’s platform during his employment. However, McDonald was one of the many who were laid off in December 2023. His website has not been updated since due to it using Spotify’s archive to compile new genres. In equal fashion, due to McDonald’s integral role in sorting Spotify’s genres, Spotify no longer has a system with which to update its genres, which likely resulted in the lack of genres appearing on Spotify Wrapped and the less useful word salads they have been replaced with, such as “pink pilates princess strut pop.”
With the controversy surrounding its latest release, the future of Spotify Wrapped—and of the streaming giant in general—is uncertain. With the amount of discussion it causes online each year, it is unlikely that it won’t return for another release. However, doubt remains over its quality in the future or if its statistics are even accurate. Considering the rise of AI in tech spaces, Spotify’s use of it in Wrapped’s rollout and throughout the rest of their platform opens up more questions on whether AI enriches an experience or cheapens it.
