Is Spotify Wrapped even fun anymore?

I remember looking at my first Spotify Wrapped in 2021. I was amazed by the mishmash of random artists and songs, happy to learn about which track I’d played fifty times, and which artist unexpectedly climbed their way into my top 5. I remember putting it on my Instagram story and owning it.

Then, I think of last year — again, an amalgam of random artists, but beneath that, a hesitation to put it on my story, and an alien sense of shame. A strange sense of shame that pervaded much of this year, too, as with the approach of October, I started actively thinking about how my Spotify Wrapped would look. Sometimes, I’d put on a song I really wanted to hear on YouTube instead, in a subconscious effort to make my Spotify Wrapped look “cooler”. I gave up this act a week later, though. This obsession with having a “better” Spotify Wrapped was really an opportunity to re-consider the value of music and what it meant to me – hopefully it will be for you too.

This trend of labelling ourselves and categorising our tastes in neat little boxes is surely exploited by Spotify Wrapped itself

We don’t always think about it, but much of what we do, how we talk and how we present ourselves tends to have a level of performance attached to it. We tend to act differently around different groups of people: family, friends, classmates, and people we go to the book club with. That, coupled with the rising fascination and interest in personality tests and types, whether it be through astrology or those strangely specific Buzzfeed quizzes, makes Spotify Wrapped sound even more exciting. At the same time, it becomes exhausting.

Have you ever felt pressure when everyone goes around the room sharing their favourite book, film, or artist? Have you ever had different answers for these questions depending on who is asking? In many ways, it feels like second nature to tell one person that I largely listen to alternative music and tell someone else that I’ve also been exploring K-Pop.

Most of this comes down to self-fashioning, and a need to be perceived in a certain light: artsy, chic, cool, or cute, depending on who is listening. This trend of labelling ourselves and categorising our tastes in neat little boxes is surely exploited by Spotify Wrapped itself. Reflected through listening ages, genre-sandwiches (2023) and more obviously through the 2022 “Listening Personality”, which was very clearly a riff on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator tests (MBTI).

After being told my listening age was twenty-six, I didn’t feel the same pride

I clearly remember the sense of pride I felt at my 2022 Personality result – after all, it wasn’t every day you were crowned a “Specialist”, and praised for your “familiarity, newness, variety and uniqueness”. Thinking about it now, however, I wonder if every song I listened to that year was informed by that intention. This year, after being told my listening age was twenty-six, I didn’t feel the same pride. I’m not sure what I felt really – it was a cross between, “well, I’m nineteen, so that makes sense” and “does this mean my taste is not refined enough?”.

What was probably meant to be a mildly amusing age-diagnosis, then, has instead become an invitation to wonder whether our music tastes are “unseasoned” or “pretentious”, because no one really wants to be “too young” or “too old”.

The quality this year surely improved from last year’s, but I noticed the momentum die down

In 2024, Spotify Wrapped was met with a slew of criticism, as opposed to the usual excitement. A Forbes article from last year summarises these sentiments, noting the use of “nonsensical” and simultaneously hyper-specific categories and the AI-podcast. The creative and colourful illustrations had seemed to have given way to an autogenerated and uninspired regurgitation of the past year’s statistics. An event that countless people looked forward to turned out to be entirely underwhelming.

In my opinion, the quality this year surely improved from last year’s, but I noticed the momentum died down. The same group chats that would erupt in Spotify Wrapped exchanges were much slower, with fewer people sharing their statistics. I was instantly taken back to 2022, where everyone seemed proud of what they’d amassed. For the second year in a row, I deliberated on whether I should share my Wrapped on my story. Two years ago, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought.

I will prioritise listening to music that empowers me and gives me joy, rather than wondering if listening to a specific song means that I’m forty-one or sixty-five

While Wrapped 2025 included personality-driven elements, such as a “Listening Club”, the listening age feature was what became more discussed. Not so much because it seemed interesting, but more so because it was perplexing. Without clear labels, users were left to wonder what it meant to have an old versus a young listening age. The more important question, for me, however, was, “Why does it matter?”

Indeed, with this intrinsic pressure to perform, it becomes more necessary to uncover why we listen to music and enjoy it in the first place. Whether it’s about comfort, confidence, or simply unwinding after a long day, listening to music that we like in our personal space makes us feel positive. It feels like the excitement behind Wrapped has dwindled because music – an art form so personal and subjective – has become another facet of our personality that we must fashion.

More than whether you listen to everything, or value a few artists or whether you listen to 2000s hip-hop, 1980s folk, or video game soundtracks, what is important is that you enjoy the listening experience. Although I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions, for next year, I will prioritise listening to music that empowers me and gives me joy, rather than wondering if listening to a specific song means that I’m forty-one or sixty-five.