After weeks of anticipation, some Spotify customers are left underwhelmed by the streamer’s personalised year-in-review characteristic, Spotify Wrapped — with many even going as far as to name it “boring” or a “flop.”
Chief among the many complaints are that Spotify prioritized the inclusion of an AI podcast for Wrapped over the opposite, intelligent and inventive information tales that it sometimes gives — like people who determine your music persona, match you to a city that shares your musical tastes, describe your “audio aura,” or flip your listening historical past right into a recreation you possibly can share with associates, amongst different issues. Others are upset over the shortage of extra detailed stats and the exclusion of knowledge they’ve come to count on, like high music genres and high podcasts. Spotify declined to make clear how they determined which options to incorporate.
On X, quite a few persons are sharing their suggestions alongside the #SpotifyWrapped2024 hashtag, the place they’re describing this yr’s annual overview of their listening historical past as “boring,” a “flop,” “underwhelming,” a “disappointment,” and extra. Though this hasn’t stopped folks from sharing screenshots of their Wrapped, a scroll by the hashtag presently surfaces extra complaints than accolades.
For instance, one high put up calling Wrapped a flop has over 108,000 likes as of the time of writing.
This yr, Spotify closely wager on a partnership with Google to show customers’ Wrapped experiences into an AI-powered podcast over the opposite particulars and options which have sometimes made Wrapped so participating. One Spotify consumer particularly pointed to the shortage of “quirky interactive bits” just like the “silly personality assessments,” whereas one other famous the brand new “Your Music Evolution” characteristic was “quite strange.” (The latter had repurposed the area of interest genres Spotify makes use of for its personalised each day playlist, Daylist, as a strategy to describe how customers’ musical tastes modified all year long.)
What Spotify customers wished was the identical kind of High Style info they’d in earlier years, the complaints point out.
Others discovered that Wrapped didn’t embrace their High Podcasts in 2024, however this characteristic seems to have been provided to some podcast listeners, and never others, posts on X point out.
Spotify says customers will need to have at the very least two high exhibits to ensure that High Podcasts to be part of their Wrapped expertise. A present is eligible if the consumer listened for at the very least 60 seconds of two distinctive episodes and listened to the present on two completely different days all year long.
Others stated that they couldn’t discover their Wrapped 2024 playlist. It does seem within the Wrapped feed within the Spotify app as “Your Top Songs 2024,” however your Wrapped interactive expertise itself doesn’t hyperlink to the playlist, which can be why some people have missed it.
The graphics and artwork design used for Wrapped this yr additionally noticed blended evaluations, as some described them as “mid,” “really simple,” and a lot worse, although others expressed liking them.
The AI podcast additionally had a blended reception. Those that hadn’t come throughout Google’s NotebookLM earlier than had been impressed by the know-how, although some expressed a feeling of unease with the characteristic. Spotify doubtless hoped customers would share their AI podcasts on social video apps like TikTok however, as a substitute, a perusal of the #SpotifyWrapped hashtag on the app exhibits many complaints in regards to the characteristic didn’t reside as much as the hype this yr, with some suggesting AI was responsible.
As well as, quite a few customers linked their disappointment with Wrapped to Spotify’s earlier layoffs, guessing that this yr’s downgrade needed to do with the shortage of staffing mixed with an overreliance on AI. The corporate let go of 2,300 folks in 2023, which CEO Daniel Ek stated had impacted day-to-day operations greater than anticipated.
Though a year-end characteristic, Wrapped is part of Spotify’s day-to-day operations to some extent, as the corporate informed press earlier this week it has already begun work on subsequent yr’s Wrapped. Groups from throughout the corporate contribute to the hassle, together with advertising and marketing, product, music, podcasts, audiobooks, and extra. Spotify declined to say how many individuals work on Wrapped, nevertheless.
When requested for touch upon the way it determined what to incorporate in Wrapped this yr, Spotify merely stated, “Every year we look to bring a new and exciting experience to Wrapped for listeners. It’s part of the secret sauce of Wrapped.”
