On December 4th, 2024, Spotify’s annual review of its users’s listening habits throughout the year was released. Spotify Wrapped usually offers a fun conversation with peers or a post on one’s Instagram story, sharing your top artists or how many minutes you spent listening to music. However, this year, the app’s users (myself included) were unsatisfied with the platform’s 2024 version of the review.

The dissatisfaction started before Wrapped even came out. Throughout the years, Spotify has avoided announcing the date that Spotify Wrapped will come out, simply releasing it without warning between November 30 and December 6th. This year’s December 4th drop falls right within that range, yet many were upset by how “long” it took them to release this year’s Wrapped. Why? Well, in hopes of creating hype around Wrapped being released, Spotify has taken to social media platforms like TikTok, commenting on videos anticipating the release of the review with vague statements along the lines of “Coming soon.” This did not sit well with some users of the music platform, many of whom voiced this frustration on social media, asking for an end to the ominous marketing and just to release this year’s Wrapped.

I saw these comments from the music platform’s account on TikTok and rolled my eyes; while this mysteriousness can build hype, it can also break it. To some level, waiting for an unknown date with no real signs of it coming, encourages users to lose interest. That happened to me; a day or so into December, I was no longer looking for signs of Wrapped dropping and was only made aware of the release on the fourth by peers on social media.

That brings us to the actual release of 2024’s Spotify Wrapped. This year’s release featured only eight slides recapping one’s listening history. This number has been compared to 2022’s 11 and 2023’s 17 slides, prompting a feeling of disappointment from many. Additionally, rather than the usual review of one’s year of listening, including top songs, artists, and genres, Spotify eliminated the review of top genres, replacing it with Music Evolution. This entails the platform taking one’s listening habits from two months out of the past year and assigning buzzwords to describe them. One of my friends was given “Mulled Cider Slow Dance Bedroom Pop” for February. I was given Softie Instrumental Korean Indie for October.

While looking at these words, I can get a sense of the general vibe it is trying to portray… but still, what does this mean? I would much rather know my top genres! Did listening to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky every day while studying make the genre of classical music rank above bedroom pop or indie rock? I guess I will never know; instead, I will have to be satisfied with knowing that my October vibe was something akin to easy listening.

All things considered, I do align myself with the group of people not satisfied with this year’s Spotify Wrapped; maybe it’s because the platform spoiled users with the quality of last year’s Wrapped or because even without any comparison to the past, this year’s was just underwhelming and left me feeling like my life could have gone on without it. Perhaps next year’s Spotify Wrapped will improve, but until then, I’ll continue listening to the music for next year’s report, and keep my expectations low while I’m at it.