Why We Should Hate Spotify Wrapped, But Why We Actually Love It
By: Nic Mcbride
Tags: Spotify, Music, Spotifywrapped, Spotify Playlist, Year In Review

It’s the end of the year, that means everyone has received and shared their Spotify Wrapped compilations.

Or, depending on the content, maybe you haven’t shared it.

Either way, Spotify Wrapped has become a huge tool for the company — going so far as to post billboards with information about specific users’ listening habits.

In fact, Spotify Wrapped has become so popular that Apple even jumped on board and made it’s own ‘Apple Music Replay’.

And for anyone who loves music it’s all good fun, discovering what you listened to this year, comparing to your friends and family.

But here’s a few reasons why Spotify Wrapped isn’t all it’s wrapped up to be:

They withhold information

Remember iTunes? Remember Windows Media Player? Before their untimely demise they were the mainstays for listening to digital music.

And, they could show you how many times you had played your songs straight away. No waiting around for December.

Since Spotify came in and took the throne, they have been very limited with what information you can access — like listening stats — and when you can get it.

Instead they’ve taken what once used to be freely available and packaged it as a very successful marketing tool:

The Spotify app was downloaded 2.3 million times globally in the three days after Spotify Wrapped was released.

2. The 30 Second Rule

One of the key features to Spotify Wrapped is which songs you played the most.

But it turns out you only have to listen to a song for 30 seconds before it counts as a full listen. This is verified according to Spotify’s own Community section:

Make of that what you will, but 30 seconds seems relatively short.

3. Does Spotify Wrapped include December?

Spotify Wrapped comes out in early December. So if your as obsessive as me, you keep asking ‘Does Spotify Wrapped include December?’

The answer proves quite difficult to pin down.

Spotify itself does not openly disclose what period it monitors for the Wrapped.

But, according to threads on Reddit, your Spotify Wrapped only factors in your listening from January 1 to October 31.

Sorry November and December.

If this holds true — or even if Spotify Wrapped were to not include just December — that’s still a month of listens that are not counted.

For the most part that would exclude Christmas songs (for good or bad, you can make up your own mind).

4. No Distinctions

Got kids? Got a bedtime playlist? What were your most listened to songs?

Spotify Wrapped has yet to distinguish between songs you listen to by choice and songs you listen to for other reasons.

Numerous Twitter users bemoaned the fact that their Spotify Wrapped ended up including sleep playlists.

While parents no doubt have theirs skewed by the latest Disney movie.

Why do we love it though?

Music.

It defines us.

It reveals your personality.

Those who remember MSN will remember having the song you were listening to sit underneath your username. It represented you.

Spotify Wrapped encapsulates that feeling and it does it well.

Your listens are played back to you in sleek presentation and have become even more shareable (see; anyone with an Instagram account).

There’s also something reflective about receiving this information at the end of your year.

Will Spotify make our listening information more freely available to us moving forward? Who knows. They’re not really obliged to do it at all.

See you in December 2020.