[…] Many users are complaining of hallucinated artists’ stats, songs they’ve never heard appearing in most listened lists, and more. Some users aren’t happy with the way that Spotify Wrapped looked this year, complaining that it was boring, and not as creative as previous years. […]
One of the most common complaints seems to be that Spotify Wrapped has misreported on the stats in claims to represent. Now, while this has happened in previous years, this year it seems to be a whole lot more prevalent — as you can see in this Spotify support thread. It’s filled with users complaining about top artists they’ve never listened to, songs appearing in at the top of their lists that they didn’t even know existed, or a mixture of the two.
Just anecdotally talking with people outside the internet-o-sphere and you’ll quickly find people with iffy Spotify Wrapped statistics. I have friends who listen exclusively to bizarre, underground punk acts, and their Wrappeds were topped by the likes of The Weeknd and Taylor Swift. Even on the Tom’s Guide team, we’ve seen strangeness — our own Millie Fender discovered Swift among her top artists, yet her songs didn’t appear in her top 100.
Just read people’s reactions online, especially in the trending topic on X or even the announcement thread on Reddit. Many are blaming Spotify’s pivot to AI this year for the lack of personality, and some even hold it responsible for their weird Spotify statistics. I have reached out to Spotify for comment, but I am yet to hear a response.
What can we do?
First off, there are other streaming platforms with year-end roundups. Deezer, for example, has unleashed My Deezer Year, and like everything the French streamer does, it’s filled with creativity and personality. That’s a streaming service with better sound quality too. Apple Music has its Replay feature, which similarly takes you through your year. There are options.
If you’re duty-bound to Spotify, then there is a way to really check your most-listened-to artists, songs, and genres — Track your listening with Last.FM, for example, which gives you breakdowns over the course of the year. Whatever happens, I (and many others) are hoping that Spotify Wrapped is a whole lot better next year.
I was disappointed in the graphics, but my stats seemed right. The slide for my top podcasts had black text on a black background, but luckily all my top 5 podcasts have their name on their logo. Still looks kinda stupid though.
hallucinated
It is just fucking wrong. AI isn’t a living thing that is comparable to a person or animal, or even a plant. It is wrong a lot and that is because it has no motivation or reality or anything like that. It is pattern matching that is not reliable for factual results, and sometimes the results are just wrong.
Good callout. We shouldn’t attribute intent, experience, or any other human characteristics, to software.
I switched to Spotube because none of the music apps even have most of the weird songs I listen too, but I still have spotify only for podcasts because there aren’t any platforms that have all the ones I listen too and I’m not looking into finding new ones.
I also don’t want to have 10 apps for 1 podcast each, the closest replacement would be YT music but in their infinite wisdom they combined accounts across videos and music, I don’t want to see followed music artists in my subscriptions on the video app and I’m not paying for 2 premium accounts to keep them separate.
Also apple podcast & music sounds like it might be enough, but I’m now switching to iOS only for podcasts, I like my sideloaded apps thank you.
Sorry I had to vent as this as been pissing me off for a long while.
If you’re on Android, I use AntennaPod for all my podcasts. It’s FOSS that pulls from all the various podcast sources; I have yet to run across a podcast I couldn’t add to my rotation
If you’re ever looking to cut out Spotify completely, maybe see if that fits what you need.
Its been a few days of using the app and honestly I’m loving it a lot more than Spotifys UI, only downside is no good way discover new podcasts similar to what I like but honestly that’s an easy internet search, so I guess there are no downsides that I can’t easily fix.
mine was on point
Hurtin’ hearts need some healin’, Take my hand with your glove of love.
congratulations on being in the 0.001% of all listeners worldw
That explains a lot. I looked at the wrap and the “podcast” and they reported different top songs. The podcast was actually closer to what I expected than my actual list.
I didn’t expect it to include podcasts this year, so it outed me to a work colleague (there was a gay podcast I tried in it). He was chill about it, but why the fuck are podcasts even in Wrapped?
Is there a good way to sync listening history between platforms? That seems to be a big reason why people have a hard time jumping around between platforms
Last.fm is really great for tracking, it’s been around for forever too, no idea why it isn’t more popular.
Unfortunately they walled garden themselves pretty universally. I’ve been on Tidal since Spotify fired all those people and have been really enjoying it.
Maybe I’m crazy but I feel like their recommended music is also way better.
Lastfm or listenbrainz
You mean the corporation you gave boatloads of personal data to is manipulating it to use against you in the pursuit of profit?! [surprised pikachu.jpg]
Your top song was $songThatIReallyListenedToAFewTimes. You had a streak of two days listening to it and your play count was 4.
Ok, the genre is right. The band is a band I know and sometimes listen to, but I dislike their newer songs (which the above is an example of). The start might be right, but it’s definitely not my top listened song 2024
Why this even calls for generative AI is beyond me. Just post my top 5 artists and top 5 songs. It’s data already available.
Mine said my top artist is Hozier, driving my Goblincore Fantasy Forest phase. I couldn’t name a Hozier song since Take Me To Church, a song that falls into Nickelback territory for me, as in sellouts that get way too much playtime. And no idea how that turned into goblins and fantasy forests.
Also had goblincore in my genre. Whatever that is…
IIRC, goblincore is an aesthetic related to the more ugly side of nature - think mushrooms, toads, and snakes. But it’s like a fashion/lifestyle subculture thing like “dark academia,” not a music genre.
Only the podcast style overview is ai generated. Since the two voice are not from real human
Goblincore Fantasy Forest, definitely a real human genre.
Not seeing that Hozier criticism tbh but agree spotify sucks
I think that “take my whiskey meat” song is Hozier. It was popular this year. Maybe you listened to it?
Listen here, dummy, “AI”. Do you understand?
/s
If you’re a corpo, not integrating generative AI somewhere is seen as a misstep. Shareholders want to know that their money is being used on the cutting edge.
Of course, both groups are clueless as to where generative AI may actually be useful. But ultimately it doesn’t matter.
I use a self hosted playback tracker.
The top 3 were matching for self hosted and Spotify, but the last two in the top 5 were completely different. No matter which way I sorted it (time vs plays), the self hosted tracker was correct.
It looked wrong when I first clicked it, but then sort of restarted and corrected itself, almost like it started with the wrong data cached.
i listened to the new eminem album once and it said he was my #2 artist. i had a day where i listened to nothing but aphex twin and he wasn’t on the list. busted for sure.
Dropped Spotify after the CEO said artists music weren’t worth anything and raised their annual fee at the same time. Trash company
Slow news day? Who gives a literal fuck
Not every news story needs to be earth shattering. Some can be about mundane things people enjoy.
This is happening because Spotify laid off half it’s staff and thought it could get away with it.
