Spotify Wrapped is a highly anticipated annual event which offers Spotify users a personalized recap of their listening data over the past year. People from all over the world post and compare their music stats with each other, making it a connective experience for music lovers. Wrapped tends to release in late November, although, for 2024 the date was drastically delayed, further building anticipation. Releasing December 4th, 2024, due to the long wait fans expected Wrapped to be just as full and immersive as previous years, but many were met with disappointment.
This year’s Wrapped introduced a few new features, such as monthly genre breakdowns and a custom AI podcast which followed along with the Wrapped presentation. Though, these features were frowned upon. Users were getting told they were listening to nonsensical genres like “pink pilates princess strut pop”. With these not being genuine genres, when listeners would try and search for related songs they would be met with no results. The genres were claimed to be misleading and left many users questioning their true top music genres.
The reasoning for the absurd genre choices is due to Spotify’s extensive use of AI during 2024’s Wrapped. Everything was put together by an algorithm. The gathering of music statistics, creating colorful backgrounds, and providing commentary on personal wraps. The heavy use of AI was deemed to be quite controversial, sparking some outrage on the internet from upset fans, with some going as far as to claim their stats were entirely wrong. The purpose of Spotify Wrapped is for users to see their top artists, songs, and podcasts, along with fun statistics like how many minutes they spent listening. Inaccurate data ruins the whole point of a Wrapped.
Overall, Spotify Wrapped 2024 was extremely rushed and did not live up to the hype that was surrounding it. Having less features than 2023’s Wrapped, it was a letdown. Users continue to complain about the issues surrounding 2024’s Spotify Wrapped, and hope this year’s will exceed expectations, continuing to deliver the yearly music reflections its users love so dearly.