Since its launch in 2016, Spotify Wrapped has become an end-of-year staple that people treat like a holiday tradition. But this year, Spotify Wrapped sucked the joy right out of the beginning of the month with a lackluster data dump that disgruntled several users online.
In the past, the feature has gone viral for its creative blend of pop culture references, aesthetically pleasing presentations, and concrete data on how people listen to music. After all, who doesn’t love getting personalized information on their own music tastes? Even if people were embarrassed by their own tastes, the feature has always been a key element of Spotify’s appeal as a streaming platform. This time around, Spotify Wrapped lacked its usual charm. Instead of providing an individualized gift for its users, the whole experience felt more like getting socks for Christmas.
Listeners turned to social media to point out why 2024’s specific Spotify Wrapped felt like a huge letdown. First and foremost, the streaming giant left out a key data point from users’ individualized Wrapped data set: top genres. Spotify didn’t share the amount of genres users listened to, as it has in the past.
Another fun aspect of Spotify Wrapped that the streaming platform left out was “Sound Town,” which was a feature last year that paired listeners with different cities based on their top artists and genres. In a previous year, Spotify Wrapped also included a personalized Audio Aura that matched listening habits to specific moods. These apparent one-off features were not included in the 2024 edition, to the dismay of many.
People were also critical of the feature’s overall presentation. In past years, the visual aspects of the campaign were nearly as important as the contents, with bright colors and bold graphic designs. This year, the one-dimensional visuals kept some users from wanting to share images of their results on social media. One X user took matters into their own hands and only shared a cropped version of their top artists, writing, “Spotify wrapped graphic design is so hideous this year that I had no choice but to crop.”
A rep for Spotify did not immediately return Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.
Spotify’s official Instagram was flooded with upset users commenting on several posts announcing what the streamer called “the best day of the year.” One user wrote, “Something feels fishy and sloppy with this year’s wrapped… It was very short as well..?” Some commentators even threatened to leave the streaming platform for its competitors. “One hour to give us top genres before I switch to Apple,” wrote a user under Spotify’s post celebrating Global Top Artist Taylor Swift.
Some people online blamed 2024’s underwhelming Spotify Wrapped on the recent layoffs at the company. In December 2023, just days after that year’s Spotify Wrapped launch date, Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek announced mass layoffs which affected 17 percent of its workforce, up to 1,500 people. One user wrote, “Spotify Wrapped is a bit…underwhelming this year. Less unconventional data viz moments like in previous years (like the city matches, zodiac signs, etc). It was all very obvious. The layoffs really show here.”
Others speculated on whether artificial intelligence was used to create this year’s Spotify Wrapped. A user on X wrote, “if the lack of fun facts in Spotify Wrapped this year taught us anything it’s that the world needs less AI and more chronically online data analysts with a sense of humour.” Another user concurred with the AI hypothesis: “Spotify Wrapped is underwhelming and reeks of AI… there seems to be real lack of effort this year from the boring visuals to the missing genres and quirks.”
“More than ever, Wrapped is everywhere on Spotify — a massive effort showcasing the hard work and creativity involving hundreds of Spotify team members each year,” the company said on its website.
This article was updated to clarify that “Sound Town” and Audio Aura were one-off features from previous years and to include Spotify’s statement on its website about Spotify team members’ participation in Wrapped.