Since 2016, Spotify has had its annual “Spotify Wrapped”, where over the course of the year (January 1 through October 31) they would collect the amount of minutes someone listened and the top genres, songs, and artists a listener has.
It has become a tradition for people to look out for Spotify Wrapped near the end of November so people can see their stats from the past year.
Wrapped has grown in popularity around 2022, when people began posting their wraps with celebrities joining in on the trend. With that, people looked forward to the Wrapped, with its annual themes and stats.
This year however was different, and the reception of the wrapped was vastly different from last year. This year, people began to air their frustration with the Wrapped being late online, posting videos about how Spotify Wrapped was taking too long and people wanted to see their Wrapped.
Spotify joined in with the annoyance, poking fun at the people by posting videos with text stating “Spotify Wrapped is…around the corner.” While it was supposed to be a lighthearted joke, many took the videos with annoyance and as a tell that Spotify did not care about following a schedule.
With these teasing videos, people began speculating that Spotify had decided to incorporate the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their Wrapped this year. The evidence of that became more apparent when recognizing that Spotify fired 60,000 workers within the past three months.
People began speculating that the AI was having technical difficulties and therefore could not be published in a timely manner.
Spotify Wrapped was finally public on December 4, and people were not excited. Spotify, which is known for their wraps following themes and having personality, lacked in major fields with wrong information.
Many took to social media to show how their top artists and songs were wrong, claiming that most of their top songs were songs they had never listened to, and had artists they only played once. This caused annoyance when songs and artists were cross referenced with Stats.fm, a Spotify app made to be able to track people’s listening habits for the month and year.
People were also upset at the lack of substance and personality the wrapped had this year. Last year, Spotify had a tarot card theme, giving people specific tarot depending on their listening habits. Spotify also had “The Sandwich” where they showed all top genres in the form of a sandwich.
Spotify this year had none of that, with the only form being “Evolution of your music” where Spotify chose three months and gave four to five different words to describe music habits that month.
People were upset at this because it lacked personality and was obviously made by AI (it followed the same word pattern that the AI “Daylist” Spotify has followed).
Not only was the information given on the Wrapped incorrect, but missed “Top Genres”; a staple in the information that Spotify gives. By removing that aspect, it solidified the fact they used AI. And people did not take kindly to this Wrapped.
“Spotify what is this? Take it back and give me all my information,” says one commenter under the official Spotify posted announcing the wrapped.
“You’re telling me I’m paying premium only to get the most basic and boring Wrapped ever? Start using your money towards the Wrapped” Says another comment.
Spotify has been facing relentless backlash and criticism over the Wrapped, stating “you’ve had a year” and “AI has never been reliable” as reasons the Wrapped should have been better.
The Wrapped this year was not up to par to the previous years. This has led to skepticism with AI being used in the entertainment industry and the doubt that Spotify will ever have a good Wrapped again, now that they use AI.