Every year, users of the music streaming service Spotify look forward to their Spotify Wrapped. Spotify Wrapped is a slideshow given to Spotify listeners at the end of the year that goes over what your top listened-to songs, as well as your top listened-to artists, and how many minutes you listened to music on Spotify that year, among other things. Each year Spotify adds another feature to their Wrapped feature, and the new addition for 2024 showed what kind of music era you favored in in certain months.
Unfortunately for Spotify, many people said they were left disappointed and underwhelmed with the 2024 Wrapped, complaining that it was shorter than previous years, that it omitted users’ top albums or genres in the slideshow, and that it was clearly AI in its production, with the inclusion of an AI podcast that talks about your listening habits. Some claimed that information, especially the eras, was inaccurate for them.
“One of my eras on Spotify Wrapped was ‘Psychedelic Old School Metal Rock Season’ because I listened to artists like Queen and AC/DC, even though neither of those bands are considered psychedelic rock. I didn’t like that my Wrapped even got the genres of the music I was listening to wrong,” said FCHS sophomore Madelyn Grout.
Some users found that their Wrappeds didn’t feature any eras or AI podcasts, with no explanation for the omissions.
Spotify has also been in the heat of some controversy recently, with reports of their massive $1.5 billion profit conflicting with previous statements that they didn’t have enough money to pay artists. Allegedly, the royalty (the amount of money that they pay to an artist per stream) for one artist was a mere $.003. Spotify has also noted that that they don’t even bother paying smaller artists, which some feel is just an example of the rich get richer. Some users are angry that after all of this refusal to pay artists, Spotify couldn’t even try making a Wrapped that could stand out from all the other years.
As if that wasn’t enough to complain about, some take issue with the fact that Spotify Wrapped came out late, not even showing up in people’s feed until Dec. 6.
“I was worried that Spotify just wasn’t doing Wrapped this year, or they forgot or something. I felt like they could’ve done a better job if they took all that extra time,” said freshman Desmond Reed.
But don’t expect Spotify management to pay much attention to the grumbling. According to Investor’s Business Daily, on Jan. 14 “a Wall Street analyst raised his price target on Spotify stock, citing a positive outlook for the streaming music leader.”
As long as this streaming power house continues to rake in bucks, listening to users’ complaints may not be high on its list of priorities.
