It’s time to unpack Spotify Wrapped. Here’s how the music streamer compiled your 2025 recap

NEW YORK AP The end of is almost upon us And it s time to unpack Spotify Wrapped On Wednesday the music streaming giant delivered its annual recap giving its hundreds of millions of users worldwide a look at the top songs artists podcasts and other audio that filled their ears over the past year give or take a month and a few change Spotify isn t the only platform or music streamer to roll out a yearly glimpse of facts collected from consumers online lives But since its launch about a decade ago Wrapped has become one of the the bulk anticipated And Spotify is billing the edition to be its biggest yet with a host of new features it hopes may address certain disappointments users had last year So what goes into pulling together Wrapped and what s new this year Here s what to know How much of the year does Spotify Wrapped cover To compile Wrapped Spotify collects listening details from Jan through around mid-November That gives the company time to solidify finishing touches and deliver its recap to users by early December But it also means your late November and December streaming habits won t be included which may be why your favorite holiday songs aren t on the list or other year-end hits What goes into getting top songs artists and more For top songs artists and for the first time this year albums to show up on Spotify Wrapped the platform looks at a mix of what you stream and how long you listen for According to Spotify users must listen to at least tracks for over seconds each to get top songs For artists users need to listen to at least five unique artists for over seconds And for top album users need to have listened to at least of the tracks on one album The company endorsed that input is collected evenly across all platforms and that streaming in offline mode will also be counted as long as the device connects back to the internet a scant weeks before Wrapped s launch Listening using Spotify s private mode features meanwhile won t contribute to any rankings but will still count toward total time spent on the platform And Spotify says background sounds like white noise are filtered out When does Spotify start building Wrapped each year What s new in Marc Hazan senior vice president of marketing and partnerships at Spotify reported his gang started thinking about Wrapped the day last year s recap was launched It s a full year production that touches without question every function within Spotify Hazan advised The Associated Press On day one he noted that includes looking at what users think of the Wrapped that just dropped Various Spotify subscribers were quick to share disappointments about s recap with specific complaining that Wrapped was too minimalist last year Others took to social media with memes mocking features that didn t seem to hit the mark The look and feel of Wrapped evolves each year and Hazan notes the rise of the edition was largely driven by last year s feedback We ve really taken the feedback to heart and fueled what we think is the freshest most of action-packed Wrapped experience we ve ever done he added That includes returning music genres which were missing in s Wrapped The platform is also introducing top albums and audiobooks as well as playcounts for each song that makes your annual playlist And the experience is more gamified this year There s a prompt for users to guess their top song before it s revealed and a listening age which takes a stab at guessing how old your music taste is based on when your favorite tunes were disclosed Spotify has also unveiled Wrapped Party a feature that allows users to compare their listening habits with friends who also use the app and win their own award-like titles within the group How is AI used Among other backlashes Spotify received last year was speculation over how much artificial intelligence played a role in compiling Wrapped The the greater part visible use of AI in Spotify s Wrapped was an accompanying podcast powered by generative AI Spotify didn t repeat the podcast this year but is introducing another feature Archive which uses a large language model to break down your listening on specific days That s the the majority AI-focused part of s Wrapped Hazan mentioned But the equipment is still more broadly supplemented across Spotify s technical operations the present day including in scaling the reach of its annual recap Rooted into Wrapped is human creativity Hazan mentioned stressing that hundreds of people work on pulling together the recap each year Apparatus like AI he noted helps fast track and enhance the product so it can reach the platform s more than million users What does Wrapped say about facts tracking more broadly Spotify is far from the only company to track what users do on its platform and feed back certain of that records with a nostalgic twist at the end of the year Streaming rival Apple Music rolled out its annual Replay on Tuesday And YouTube this week unveiled its new Recap which similarly breaks down its listeners music habits Social media platforms Google search and even dictionaries also offer their own year-end reflections These recaps may signal more transparency for users because they can see chosen material in their hands And products like Wrapped have become particularly popular because they re personalized and now designed to share online leaving multiple to look forward to it as an annual ritual of sorts notes Yakov Bart a marketing professor at Northeastern University Still one concern is the normalization of now-constant tracking of digital footprints that consumers leave online he added What Spotify Wrapped is able to do is essentially package this tracked statistics into the form of entertainment Bart explained It reframes all this digital tracking that s constantly happening behind the scenes into something that s fun And so instead of kind of feeling under surveillance users are basically feeling seen Source