The long-awaited Spotify Wrapped 2024 dropped, but a lot of people aren’t happy with the way it looks
Pretty soon folks started talking that mass layoffs in Spotify offices and the company’s unwelcome desire to use AI were at fault
At the end of every year (usually late November or early December), the music streaming platform Spotify releases its Wrapped. This year, in 2024, it came out on December 4th.
Basically, it’s a personalized compilation of a user’s stats from the last year, letting them see what kind of artists and songs they listened to the most. Plus, it also reveals what artists, tracks, albums (and other things like audiobooks and podcasts) were the most popular on the whole platform.
The first time Spotify Wrapped was ever released was in 2015, and with every year since, it has evolved to fascinate music streamers even more, leading people to be excited about the feature.
Until this year. When the end of November started to approach, people couldn’t wait for the Spotify Wrapped to be dropped. On November 27th, Spotify accounts teased the Wrapped, leading many people to theorize it would drop on the 28th, as it is common for it to be released on a Wednesday. Then, it didn’t happen, so everyone expected December 4th to be the day, which this time was true.
Pretty quickly, social media was flooded with people disappointed with this long-awaited feature. Bored Panda reached out to Jurgita, an avid Spotify user since 2019, to talk a little bit more about this.
The first thing that everyone, including Jurgita, noticed was that it was quite short and the visuals were rather boring too.
Then, it also contained a barely exciting feature. Last year, in 2023, the users got to see which town matched their listening vibe; in 2022, what their “listening personalities” were, and so on.
This year people got their “music evolution,” which came with questionable names. For example, “Pink Pilates Princess Strut Pop” – what is that? Or “Pumpkin Spice Vogue Pop.” Instead of giving people their actual genres, like they used to do, Spotify came up with these names that sound AI-generated from internet buzzwords.
Our interviewee Jurgita had a similar opinion. She pointed out that it was disappointing to not see accurately what genres she listened to and instead see names that were put randomly in order to cause some sort of a feeling or reaction.
Additionally, they gave some other artificial intelligence features, like an AI podcast, which is basically a personalized audio review of their statistics. And it wasn’t even available everywhere, only in selected countries. Jurgita was saddened that in her country, Lithuania, the Wrapped didn’t contain it, as maybe it would have added at least some pizzazz to the underwhelming review.
At the same time, those who got it weren’t that thrilled either – the AI-generated voices pretending to have a conversation were a bit unsettling.
Some people were also concerned that the stats weren’t accurate, at least in their opinion. Here, in this Reddit thread, many folks are discussing exactly that. One person noted that out of their top 5 songs, 4 of them were by the same artist, which they hadn’t listened to in months. Also, 2 of these songs were unrecognizable to them.
Another person noted that the artists Chappell Roan and Charli XCX, whose music they listened to non-stop since summer, didn’t even make it to their top 5.
Our interviewee Jurgita also had complaints about her stats: “I haven’t listened to the song that ended up as my top 4th in months, so it’s weird it’s up there. Also, the top didn’t feature a single song from the artists Wrapped claimed to be my top 1.”
There were also people who were displeased with their top 100 playlist being not the actual top but rather a patterned playlist.
Well, there were a lot of problems with Spotify Wrapped this year, that’s for sure. It led to people wondering whether recent layoffs had something to do with it. It’s possible that the company lost the people who created the magic of Wrapped and instead relied on AI.
A few even theorized that AI could have hallucinated some things. Or that Spotify lost the data and had to scramble to cover it up, and that’s why inaccuracies happened.
Either way, maybe after this year Spotify will take notes and will improve next year, or the longevity of the event will be in danger. Hopefully, it won’t be another YouTube Rewind situation.
What do you think about this year's Spotify Wrapped? Share with us in the comments!
