A year following an unusual halt, Spotify reintroduced a well-liked item and incorporated novel functionalities people actually like with its 2025 iteration of Wrapped, which was released yesterday.
TL;DR
- Spotify's 2025 Wrapped returns popular features and adds new ones like top albums and audiobooks.
- New features include song guessing games, in-app "Wrapped Party" competitions, and a "listening age" metric.
- AI's role is reduced to "Listening Archive," identifying listening patterns from specific dates.
- Wrapped is a significant business driver, engaging 245 million users last year.
Following numerous user grievances expressed on social media regarding the 2024 presentation, Spotify's leadership indicated that they leveraged that dissatisfaction to drive this year's enhancement of its eagerly awaited annual data compilation:
- Top genres returned after an inexplicable absence last year.
- New functionalities offer top albums and audiobooks, playcounts for your most popular songs, a game to guess your top song, and a “Wrapped Party” within the app that functions as a “live competition you can play with friends.”
- Then there's the possibility of a devastating disclosure of your “listening age” derived from your information. Our Executive Editor Neal Freyman's score was 92, which was just a bit higher than our estimation.
Out with AI (but not entirely): Spotify faced criticism in 2024 for its late-stage commitment to AI. This year, the sole acknowledgment of AI is Listening Archive, which identifies patterns from particular dates (e.g., recalling the melancholic track you streamed repeatedly after a breakup on February 14).
Like and subscribe: Wrapped is more than just something to share on your socials. During a Q4 earnings call, Co-president Alex Norstrom said Wrapped has “become a significant driver of our business.” It engaged 245 million users last year.—DL
This report was originally published by Morning Brew.
