Spotify Wrapped comes as an early Christmas gift to many music lovers around the world. Spotify is the most popular music streaming platform globally and boasts 626 million users as of June 2024 (TechRadar). The app’s Wrapped feature, introduced in 2016, shows listeners their top songs, artists, albums, and even podcasts from the year. Anticipation for Wrapped stays high as the year comes to a close since Spotify has never kept a consistent release date; customers are simply greeted with their Wrapped results when they open the app around late November to early December.
Spotify users were welcomed to the app by their 2023 Wrapped on November 29th last year. Artists like Taylor Swift, Bad Bunny, and The Weekend reigned supreme in 2023 with their hot drop albums Midnights, Un Verano Sin Ti, and Starboy (Spotify). With last year’s focus on nostalgia, users predicted a spunky, colorful vibe to represent the radiant music that dominated the Billboard charts in 2024.
“I listened to the same artists too much and got sick of them last year,” sophomore David Kamel said. “My wrapped is going to be a total surprise.”
For the past eight years, Spotify has tracked users’ listening habits from January 1st to October 31st to ensure Wrapped is ready on time. However, this year, data tracking was extended until November 20th (Neon Music) to offer a more detailed look into users’ listening personalities. Spotify continued to ramp up excitement with teasers on social media throughout late November.
Spotify’s customers woke up to the 2024 Spotify Wrapped at 8:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday, December 4th. Just like last year, Taylor Swift, The Weekend, and Bad Bunny dominated users’ charts worldwide as the top three artists of the year. The top songs were Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter, Beautiful Things by Benson Boone, and Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish. Meanwhile, the top albums were The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift, Hit Me Hard and Soft by Billie Eilish, and Short n’ Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter. More locally, Taylor Swift, Drake, and Zach Bryan garnered the most streams among American listeners.
“Spotify Wrapped is just such a fun way to look back at your year,” junior Reese Nida said. “I love getting to see how much my music taste has changed.”
This year’s Spotify Wrapped comes complete with a new, limited time, Wrapped tab in the app. This tab holds the user’s personal, statistic-based playlists, including their top 100 songs throughout the year and a new AI feature that summarizes your Wrapped in a spoken-word summary, delivered by a robot. This tab also has global statistic-based playlists with songs by the top artists of the year and top songs from different genres.
“I somehow listened to music for 68,587 minutes this year,” sophomore Brendan Pittel said. “This just proved I spend most of my time looping songs.”
Spotify is able to sustain their domination in the music-streaming industry with this feature. Wrapped creates a frenzy that overtakes peoples’ playlists and Instagram feed for a few days at the end of every year. The reception of Spotify Wrapped this year was over the moon positive and astonishing to many.
