Madison Cabagbag | Social Media Editor
December 12, 2025
On December 30th, Spotify’s annual ‘Spotify wrapped’ was released to all its users. The campaign encapsulates listening data into a fun slideshow experience, showcasing an individual’s top artists, songs, genres, and listening minutes of that year. It often unveils late November to early December, and every year music lovers look forward to their statistics.
Sophomore Maya Saggar said that “it’s great, and something to look forward to. [She] finds it interesting to look back on [her] songs throughout the year.”
Spotify is the leading music streaming app globally, and has a strong Gen Z and Millennial user base. Large corporations often struggle to connect themselves with younger audiences, but wrapped does so effortlessly.
Despite this, the event has its shortcomings— notably last year’s abundance of complaints about the AI-centered campaign. It started with awkward genre names, like ‘Sigilkore Football Underground Hip Hop,’ or ‘Pumpkin Spice Roller Skating Pop.’ But the app also included an AI wrapped podcast, essentially repeating the slideshow’s data but through an artificially generated voice. At the overwhelming negative feedback, thankfully, this year Spotify withdrew from AI, opting back for their simple reliable slideshow format.
But the campaign’s data collection has also received critique for its lack of completion and inaccuracy. Wrapped data doesn’t account for the whole year, leaving some people dissatisfied with the portrayal of their reported listening summary. Sophomore Emily Ding explained that “[she] think it’s mostly accurate, but [she] kind of wishes that it considered the whole year and not just until October because [her] music style changed a lot towards the end of the year.”
Overall, some may say the corporate world is losing touch with their communities. Spotify wrapped’s virality functions as a reminder that small additions can really tie an app’s experience together. So whether or not it’s completely accurate, or if creatives are slowly getting replaced with cringe-worthy AI ideas, the annual overview remains an iconic piece of the streaming world that many look forward to each year.
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