Every year, Spotify enthusiasts around the globe await the release of Wrapped, a highly anticipated year-end summary that showcases the most-played artists, albums, and songs for each user. It’s akin to a musical report card, where fans celebrate their personal listening trends while sharing them with friends and followers across various social media platforms. Wrapped has become somewhat of a cultural phenomenon, drawing the attention of both serious music aficionados and casual listeners alike. Indeed, it brings a sense of nostalgia as well as excitement reflecting on the soundtrack of one’s year.
However, alongside this celebration, Spotify has introduced new features over the years that have sparked divisiveness among its user base, potentially overshadowing the appreciation of the most popular music of the year. This trend has continued into the 2024 edition of Wrapped, introducing a feature titled “Your Music Evolution.” Users are presented with whimsical and often nonsensical names for different phases of their musical journey, such as “Wild west banjo outlaw country,” “theatrical potpourri Argentine rock,” and “alien grind deathcore.” While some of these names are amusingly aligned with genres, the peculiar combinations leave many scratching their heads.
Interestingly enough, Spotify has attributed these quirky labels to a system of “machine learning” they utilized to connect specific descriptors with individual songs. However, many users expressed skepticism about the connections created, claiming they were somewhat tenuous at best. The whimsicality of the descriptions could be viewed more as an entertaining marketing angle rather than a true reflection of listening habits.
Among the more popular phrases, “Pink pilates princess” emerged for listeners who reportedly indulged in music from emerging pop icons like Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX, and Chappell Roan. Although “pink” and “princess” can be traced back to individual tracks on Roan’s debut album, the inclusion of “pilates” raised eyebrows, suggesting that perhaps the creative team behind Wrapped was indulging in alliteration for its own sake.
Some descriptions bordered on bewildering, such as “Vampire football rap,” often associated with well-known rap artists like Travis Scott and Future. Additional oddities included seemingly random references like “catwalk,” “sweater weather,” “mallgoth,” and even “pirate.” Notably, the aesthetic term “Frutiger Aero,” which evokes imagery from the early 2000s Windows operating system, found its way into Wrapped this year, which further solidified the perception of absurdity among users.
Many individuals, including media editor Max Tani at Semafor, decided to share their unique “Music Evolutions” outside the confines of the Spotify platform. Tani, for instance, expressed his embarrassment over being categorized under “pumpkin spice banjo indie folk” during the winter months, which speaks volumes about how seriously some users take these amusingly ridiculous categorizations.
Despite the light-hearted nature of these updates, Tani reflected a broader sentiment when he articulated the collective frustration: “unbelievable how every year Spotify manages to make listening to music – its core business – deeply embarrassing.” This sentiment highlights a growing concern regarding the direction Spotify is taking when presenting Wrapped as both a tool for self-reflection and a medium for social engagement.
The mixed reactions to “Your Music Evolution” echo the sentiments from previous Wrapped presentations, notably the last year’s themed inclusion where users were assigned a fictional “Sound Town” representing their musical taste. While entertaining at first glance, these features often reveal little substantive insight about listeners, aside from peculiar findings like the predisposition of Burlington, Vermont residents for pop divas.
Ultimately, Spotify Wrapped remains a notable event that creates conversations around music, listening habits, and trends, albeit with an increasingly uncertain and somewhat bizarre branding strategy.
