Unwrapped and Underwhelmed with Spotify

As December rolled in, millions of Spotify users eagerly anticipated their annual “Wrapped,” a personalized summary of their listening habits over the past year. However, the 2024 edition has sparked notable dissatisfaction among fans, leading to a wave of complaints all over the internet.

Cape Sophomore Zoe Hennessy shared her thoughts on the matter. “I feel like it could’ve been themed better.” Hennessy also stated, “I wish they had as much color as Spotify’s 2023 Wrapped. It felt bland.”

Wrapped 2024 included most-listened to songs and artists, favorite music genres, and what months users listened to the artists/genres/songs the most. However, Spotify left out data that was shown last year as “Top Genres” and “Sound Town” — a feature that paired listeners with different cities based on their top artists and genres. “Top Albums” were also not featured this year, leading fans to question whether this year’s Spotify Wrapped was worth it or not.

Spotify Wrapped 2024 offers a sleek, data-driven glimpse into listeners' habits, highlighting top minutes and days, but with a more minimalist color scheme than previous years.

“I enjoyed my results, but they could’ve taken the full year into account for some things,” Sophomore Justina Goudy explained.

The Spotify Wrapped campaign has been around since 2016 and the music app decided to reinforce the format with the use of AI this year. Spotify chose to enhance their two popular AI features: “AI DJ” and “AI Playlist,” along with adding a new feature, “Your Spotify Wrapped AI Podcast.” This feature dives deeper into listeners’ top songs, artists, and genres. “DJ Wrapped” (for premium subscribers only) provides commentary about users’ year alongside the music that soundtracked it. The “Wrapped AI Playlist” (also for premium fans) provides personalized playlists that people can listen to. 

Despite the controversy, some Cape students thought this year’s Wrapped was satisfactory. “I’m really happy with my results this year,” Sophomore Cruz Vent said. “The design was really good — very colorful and fluid.”

Spotify’s “Top Artists” this year countrywide were Taylor Swift, Drake, and Zach Bryan, “Top Albums” followed right behind with “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” by Swift, “One Thing At A Time” by Morgan Wallen, and “Short n’ Sweet” by Sabrina Carpenter. Spotify users are now going into 2025 with hope that their Spotify Wrapped will look different than this year’s.