Do you listen to music? Do you listen to Spotify? Well if you answered yes to both of those questions, you’ll know that Spotify Wrapped has officially been released for 2024. Spotify Wrapped is an annual tradition for all listeners, in which Spotify releases data from the past 12 months to reflect an individual’s listening habits! Spotify listeners everywhere always have a blast “unwrapping” their year in music. The company determines someone’s favorite artist, top 100 songs, favorite listening genres, and more! Along with the data reported, Spotify also accompanies its statistics with a theme of some sort. In 2023, the theme was Auras with Spotifying identifying your type of “aura” based on the kind of music you listened to. This year, it was focused around Eras, and what kind of musical era each listener was in. Overall, Spotify has built a hardy reputation with this annual feature, so much so that other streaming services such as Apple Music and Amazon Prime Music have also developed yearly recaps of their own.
Spotify Wrapped has become a media phenomenon with millions of users anticipating its release each year. Nevertheless, many listeners found this year’s release to be underwhelming, especially with the standards set in previous years. After surveying many Spotify users at Flint Hill, many reported feelings similar to this sentiment. Senior Sofia Kazembe stated, “I thought it was less elaborate and innovative than it was last year. It felt much shorter, but I felt like the listening data was more accurate.” Senior Jeffrey Chen agreed saying, “I thought it was okay. Last year’s was better because it was more personalized while this year people kind of just got generic summaries of their year in music.”
Another issue that some listeners had this year was the release date. In most recent years Spotify released this feature in November, whereas this year users had to wait until December. Overall, the 2024 Wrapped has left a bad taste in people’s mouths, and many hope it will be better next year. So what does this mean for Spotify? Fortunately for the company, it seems like other music streaming platforms also fell flat this year. Senior Sky Rossi reported, “Apple Music was underwhelming this year and honestly every year. In comparison to Spotify, it’s not very exciting. Spotify users get a personal message from their top artist, while Apple Music users get nothing! It’s interesting to see the music I’ve listened to all year, but I think Apple Music needs to step it up if they want to compete with Spotify.”
Ultimately, the people are hoping for better user experiences next year. While everyone is grateful to have these musical experiences in the first place, with the amazing precedent Spotify has set in the past, it is no wonder that the public was disappointed this year. In conclusion, users will now wait until 2025 to see if Spotify will be able to restore Wrapped to its original glory.
