Since December 2016, the Swedish music streaming platform Spotify has been ending every year with an annual campaign-turned cultural moment known as Spotify Wrapped, a development from the Year in Music campaign in 2015.
The product is simple, and extremely effective: a personalized playlist of your most listened music, that comes with creative insights on your most played artists, genres, or what your music listening habits say about you.
And every year users fill social media feeds with the results.
You can even get roasted for your music taste.
But where is the festive music?
If you remember well what you have been listening to in late November and early December, and you have been listening to it a lot, you might be wondering why it is missing from your annual wrap.
Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” would have never shown on your playlist if you only listen to it when IT’S TIIIIIMEEE!
Generally, Spotify has been considering your listening habits from January 1 to October 31, which leaves about a month window until the Wrapped is released in late November or early December.
November may start counting
But something is changing. Spotify’s vice president of product development Babar Zafar explained to Mashable that the Wrapped experience in 2022 ended a “few weeks prior to the launch on November 30.”
In 2023, Forbes reported on the Halloween-themed official announcement that Spotify Wrapped won’t stop counting on Oct. 31.
Did you notice a difference? In 2024, the lower section of my Spotify Wrapped playlist includes the song Mujer Loba by Melody, which I discovered in late October on a Drag Race España lip-sync.
According to my listening history—yes, I still use Last.fm—I only listened to it five times in the last week of October.
Therefore, Spotify clearly factored in my November plays, though I can’t say until when exactly.
AI and Spotify Wrapped
Oh, and it finally happened.
For years, I’ve dreaded the day Spotify would integrate artificial intelligence into their annual recap, and 2024 was the year.
In partnership with Google NotebookLM, Spotify offers a short AI-generated podcast sharing your Wrapped in the most soulless way imaginable.
The machine-generated insights about artists and cringe-worthy guesses about why I listen to them are just embarrassing.
No, I didn’t like it.
The problems with Spotify Wrapped
The fact that many music lovers look forward to this every year, excited to see how the year in music turned out this time, doesn’t mean that Spotify’s product is unproblematic, quite the opposite.
There are several questions to rise about the use of your data, how artists are compensated and what the general buzz says about the way we consume and share music in the 21st century.
Many users have reacted negatively to the 2024 Spotify Wrapped, pointing to the three rounds of layoffs in 2023 as a direct cause for the lack of innovation and creativity compared to previous years.
Meanwhile, CEO Daniel Ek has earned more from the platform over the past twelve months than any artist featured on it.
As someone who has taken some steps in the music industry, it’s always interesting to see how certain artists (who belong to certain major labels) always get the spotlight over others. The algorithm that serves new music for you to discover every week isn’t neutral and, like in all industries, independent players have a harder time reaching an audience.
In the end, the amount of streams an artist receives in a year does not and should not speak to the quality of their creative work.
But what about Christmas music?
If you came to this post looking for Christmas music, I have the something for you. First of all, when I worked for Culture Trip in the Christmas of 2015 I created an advent calendar listicle post that resulted in this playlist of 24 songs. If you’re looking for more, I’ve been collecting music over the years for Another Christmas playlist in multiple languages and styles.
Enjoy! 🎄
Oriol Salvador 