Emma Bodnar '25
The holiday season is one of the most highly-anticipated times of the year - cold weather, warm food, the chance to spend time with family, and the promise of a long recess from school. One of the most exciting times of the season, however, would often be considered Spotify Wrapped.
I got Spotify solely to experience Spotify Wrapped - there’s just something special about being presented with everything embarrassing about my music taste each year. It seems to be a universal experience, too, because every year when December approaches, the masses clamor for its release date. Last year’s wrapped was especially special for me, as it was my very first, and there was something inherently magical about it - the bright colors, the long and in-depth explanations for each part of one’s music profile, the strange specificity of Burlington, Vermont.
This year’s wrapped, however, seemed to fall short. In the aftermath of Spotify’s most anticipated time of year, many disappointed fans seem to be asking: what went wrong?
The first aspect that needs to be discussed is the length of this year’s wrapped. 2024’s wrapped only had nine pages worth of insight into an individual’s music breakdown for the year, as compared to 2023’s whopping twenty. The latter was able to include far more detail, featuring a location that matched your music profile (everyone say “hello” to Burlington, Vermont), while this year barely included any fun, extra insights similar to last year’s Sound Town (everyone say “goodbye” to Burlington, Vermont).
It did, however, include the strange and probably ai-generated descriptions of particular months, including “pink pilates princess strut pop” and “surf crush beach reggae” - which unfortunately took up three of the nine pages included in 2024’s wrapped.
I was personally expecting my music profile to be far more eclectic than it turned out to be, as Spotify seems to enjoy pushing mainstream artists and songs so they end up making an appearance. I was somewhat surprised to see Taylor Swift as my top artist yet again, although I was sure I didn’t listen to her nearly as much as I did last year. I certainly did not listen to Noah Kahn, my fifth most listened-to artist, more than Fleetwood Mac or George Harrison, who were nowhere to be found in my top five.
Some of my most played songs also did not make much sense (ignoring my frankly humbling played-103-times-since-September “Vincent” by Don McClean) and all seemed to be from one genre even though it is rare for me to listen to one genre for more than a few days.
The overall feel for this year’s Spotify Wrapped seemed to be a general letdown and a fair bit of frustration towards how rushed and lazy it turned out to be. Hopefully, next year’s will include more pages, more fun details, and far less artist-pushing.
One could make an argument that Spotify was going for a “quantity over quality” situation if you ignore the meek nine pages worth of information. In a perfect world, Spotify would take this widespread criticism and make the proper adjustments for next year - but what multi-billion dollar company would want to do that?
Comments