Spotify Wrapped: a slave to the algorithm?

Spotify has released its annual holiday present to subscribers – Wrapped, a colourful compilation of most-played tracks and listening insights personalised for each user. But this year "the whole experience felt more like getting socks for Christmas", said Maya Georgi in Rolling Stone.

Thanks to AI and Spotify's ever-evolving algorithm, some say the standard of Wrapped has dropped, feeding users repetitive and reductive recommendations. It's an entertaining concept, "but as a reflection of our taste, it's a poor substitute for a mix or playlist curated by human rather than artificial intelligence", said Tom Gatti in The New Statesman.

"It represents another facet of our personality that we're outsourcing to the tech gods. I want to keep my music close. I want to do my own wrapping."

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Spotify's shift to AI

Wrapped has become a much-anticipated tradition for Spotify users (if a somewhat awkward one for Apple Music fans). Most-listened-to lists are shared widely across social media, a fact that may reflect "our cultural obsession with self-discovery", said Kofi Mframa in USA Today. "It's sort of like astrology for our ears."

To Spotify's credit, "it's a brilliant idea", said James Colley in The Guardian. "What do we love more than proof we're all individual, beautiful butterflies who think and feel more deeply than anyone else on the bus?"

But over recent years, Spotify has rolled out a suite of new AI-powered features. From an artificial DJ that curates a playlist on the fly, narrating as it goes, to the often bizarrely named "Daylists" (see one of Mframa's Daylists: "mood music quiet storm Monday evening") that are automatically generated three times each day, the app is now full of AI-driven functionality.

And in this year's Wrapped, users even received a unique, AI-generated podcast based on their listening habits. The "Audio Overview" is produced with Google's NotebookLM software.

"Often, its user-specific algorithm can create echo chambers that feed and refeed the same artists, songs, genres and overall 'vibes'," said Mframa. "At what point does hyper-personalization become incredibly impersonal and detached?"

A listening let-down

The concept of Spotify Wrapped can become quite addictive – and the knowledge that, at the end of the year, you'll have the chance to showcase your music taste to your friends and followers might even influence how you listen.

"Suddenly, you're aware you're being monitored," said Colley. "That everything you listen to in March will be on the final exam in December. Your individual predilection to listen to the part of the song that really hurts over and over and over again is going to return and be put on display for the world."

Although Spotify piloted its AI-generated recap podcast (and an "Ask AI Playlist" button in case you "want more Wrapped" afterwards), users are missing some of the streaming service's old features.

In 2024, users didn't receive a list of the genres they had listened to throughout the year. Plus, last year's "Sound Town" feature, which assigned a city to each listener based on their history, was cast aside.

"In a previous year, Spotify Wrapped also included a personalised Audio Aura that matched listening habits to specific moods," said Georgi. "These apparent one-off features were not included in the 2024 edition, to the dismay of many."

But for others, this year's Wrapped was just as disappointing as always. "The tragic news is that the results have dropped and for another year I have failed to become cool," said Colley. "Ah well, I'll try again next year."