How Has Spotify Wrapped Changed the Way We Listen to Music?

The 'Wrapped' season is back.

When December arrives, it signals the 'end' of something. At this final milestone, we all want to look back and reflect on what we've experienced. Many start preparing their annual recaps on social media, sharing their favorite and least favorite movies, songs, and books with friends. These behaviors have led music streaming apps like Spotify to offer Spotify Wrapped—a feature that takes us on a journey through everything we've listened to over the year and summarizes our listening habits.

In fact, over the past year, Spotify has faced criticism for not being the best-sounding app.It has faced boycotts from artists after the CEO invested in a war-tech startup.Along with ongoing issues regarding artist compensation, Spotify still holds the top spot as the most widely used music streaming platform in the industry. Euro News reported that in 2025, Spotify captured 31% of the market with 713 million users, 281 million of whom are premium subscribers. What sets Spotify apart from other streaming services is its unique user experience.

This user experience includes an algorithm that helps listeners easily discover new songs similar to what they already enjoy, playlist curation that feels tailor-made, and most importantly, Spotify Wrapped—a feature that meets social media users’ desire for a space to express themselves.

“In a digital landscape flooded with music services, features like Spotify Wrapped keep millions turning to Spotify. In 2025, it combines personalized content, social listening, and exclusive material, creating a user experience unlike any other. This is why casual listeners and audiophiles alike keep coming back,” wrote music rights management platform Unite Sync in their analysis.

Even though most streaming platforms have nearly identical music catalogs (Spotify’s may be smaller due to some artists removing their songs), many choose Spotify partly because they don't want to miss out on Spotify Wrapped. This perspective isn’t wrong, but it also might be changing how we view music. Amid this environment, many voices express a common sentiment:

“Spotify Wrapped is coming, but I’ve been listening to all sorts of random stuff all year.”

Such opinions reveal something about how recap culture influences our worldview to some degree. This raises the question:

Do we eagerly await Spotify Wrapped to learn about our listening habits, or have we changed our listening behavior to create a more impressive Spotify Wrapped?

Imagine when we generate our Spotify Wrapped, we want to see results showcased among beautiful graphics and catchy phrases. Of course, we want it to reflect what we truly listened to, but some might want to highlight diversity in their listening, show others their personality through their music genres, or present themselves as having an 'acceptable' taste.

But what if you usually listen to albums? If you have favorite albums you play repeatedly into the next year, and your top songs all come from the same album, then your Wrapped might not look very diverse.

Maybe you listen to the year's hits because they resonate with you, playing them so often they top your list, yet you want to project a niche music listener image. How would you dare to share your Wrapped then?

And if this year you mostly revisited old music and barely touched new songs, would you seem outdated?

Because of this, many of us might subconsciously change how we listen to music. Even if we have our favorite ways and songs, a small voice inside thinks of Wrapped as a kind of 'task' or another performance we must do to maintain our online identity.

This mindset isn't limited to music listening. In the social media era, where we express identity through behaviors, what we share online is always considered 'content.' For example, you might have heard friends say things like,“I haven’t gone anywhere this month, so I have nothing to wear,”or “Photo Dump,”or “This year feels like I stayed in the same place; there’s nothing to recap.”Even though having nothing to do, being still, resting, or feeling uncertain are all part of life—they are real experiences worth reflecting on just as much as moving forward.

That said, recap culture isn’t inherently evil. Everyone can choose how to view Spotify Wrapped as they wish. But it would be better if we didn’t let it influence the aesthetics of music listening or pressure us to constantly 'curate' until we forget the true joy of listening to music.

References:euronews.com,unitesync.com