Every year since 2016, toward the end of November, avid music enthusiasts eagerly await a reflection of all their listening in the form of Spotify Wrapped. The marketing campaign, which gives Spotify users a compilation of their yearly activity data on the platform, began as a way to celebrate artists and users alike. In recent years, however, the campaign has become an immense social phenomenon, with large communities sharing their results across the globe. Although the excitement of opening Spotify to Wrapped has been compared to that of Christmas morning, this year’s Wrapped left expectant fans frustrated, and rightfully so.
“I know that a lot of people, me and my friends included, were counting down the days until Spotify Wrapped. Obviously, it didn’t end up how so many of us expected, so it was definitely super disappointing to see how it played out,” junior Elyse Harris said.
Spotify did not start off on the right foot this year. Although the timeframe for Spotify Wrapped stretches into early December, the company had made it point to be punctual for the past years, releasing Wrapped on the last days of November. This time around, however, users waited desperately until the beginning of December. Although this difference may seem negligible, Spotify had already set expectations for release dates and formed an incredibly loyal community that awaited nothing less than perfection. To make it even worse, Spotify was completely silent about the matter, even after users begged for a set date to wait for.
“At school especially I saw a lot of students feeling frustrated about Spotify Wrapped. Not necessarily because they wanted to see their data themselves, but because they wanted to share to with their friends and post about it. Either way, the delay was really unexpected from Spotify. I think that was more so because of the anticipation around it that made those four days in December feel so long,” junior Beatrice Stampino-Strain said.
Dissatisfaction with Wrapped this year was not solely due to Spotify’s tardiness, though. When Dec. 4 came around and users were finally pleased to see their data, the features were completely underwhelming. In previous years, Spotify added some of the most interesting and engaging features to Wrapped. This included matching users’ music tastes to specific regions of the world or showing the development of their listening habits through “Listening Auras.” Apart from the routine “Top Five Songs” and “Top Five Artists,” all Spotify gave listeners was a lazy attempt at Artificial Intelligence integration. The idea itself was not bad; users would see what kind of “vibe” their listening habits during a set month had. However, AI mindlessly spit out completely random and comically terrible phrases to explain said “vibes.”
The graphics were the last thing that really sealed the fate of this year’s Wrapped. Just one year ago, in 2023, Spotify’s designs for Wrapped were very eccentric. This may not sound promising from a brand identity perspective, seeing as Spotify’s design is very sleek and often minimal, but users were very pleased. It seems like Spotify’s efforts in graphic design were all used up, however, as many graphics this year were repeated or plain boring.
“The graphics in Wrapped this year were definitely something I noticed. I felt like Spotify was very on-point with making original designs that felt different form past years, but this year’s graphics felt super basic. All the graphics were blocky or got used multiple times in the same Wrapped so they definitely felt overused,” junior Harris said.
Spotify’s reputation is not totally ruined though. User have seen generally great results from Wrapped for around the past five years, so similar results are surely possible. As Spotify moves forward, they need to acknowledge what people really want, not gimmicky features or a rushed product, but something that actually feels refreshing and rewarding. Spotify Wrapped is not just a part of the platform anymore, it is a worldwide event and more careful steps need to be taken to ensure it can perform as expected.
“In the past years I think Spotify Wrapped has definitely turned into more than what it started as. So many people from all over look forward to Wrapped every single year. The community around it is huge and Spotify definitely knows it. I think they do not know how to handle it, though,” junior Gabriella Arango said.
