After weeks of anticipation, some Spotify customers are left underwhelmed by the streamer’s customized 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 artistic information tales that it usually gives — like those who determine your music character, 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 buddies, amongst different issues. Others are upset over the shortage of extra detailed stats and the exclusion of data 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, numerous persons are sharing their suggestions alongside the #SpotifyWrapped2024 hashtag, the place they’re describing this 12 months’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 means of the hashtag at present surfaces extra complaints than accolades.
For instance, one high publish calling Wrapped a flop has over 108K likes as of the time of writing.
This 12 months, 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 usually made Wrapped so participating. One Spotify person particularly pointed to the shortage of “quirky interactive bits” just like the “foolish character assessments,” whereas one other famous the brand new “Your Music Evolution” characteristic was “fairly unusual.” (The latter had repurposed the area of interest genres Spotify makes use of for its customized day by 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 data that they had in earlier years, the complaints point out.
Others discovered that Wrapped didn’t embody 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 should have a minimum of two high exhibits to ensure that High Podcasts to be part of their Wrapped expertise. A present is eligible if the person listened for a minimum of 60 seconds of two distinctive episodes and listened to the present on two completely different days all year long.
Others mentioned that they couldn’t discover their Wrapped 2024 playlist. It does seem within the Wrapped feed within the Spotify app as “Your High Songs 2024,” however your Wrapped interactive expertise itself doesn’t hyperlink to the playlist, which can be why some of us have missed it.
The graphics and artwork design used for Wrapped this 12 months additionally noticed blended evaluations, as some described them as “mid,” “actually easy,” 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 probably 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 stay as much as the hype this 12 months, with some suggesting AI was guilty.
As well as, numerous customers related their disappointment with Wrapped to Spotify’s earlier layoffs, guessing that this 12 months’s downgrade needed to do with the shortage of staffing mixed with an overreliance on AI. The corporate let go of two,300 folks in 2023 which CEO Daniel Ek mentioned 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 advised press earlier this week it has already begun work on subsequent 12 months’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, nonetheless.
When requested for touch upon the way it determined what to incorporate in Wrapped this 12 months, Spotify merely mentioned, “Yearly we glance to carry a brand new and thrilling expertise to Wrapped for listeners. It’s a part of the key sauce of Wrapped.”
