Spotify Wrapped 2024 poll: Was it any good?

Everybody who is anybody is doing year-end recaps right now. We just saw Google Photos get in on the action, and earlier this week Amazon joined the ranks of music streamers doing recaps with its inaugural Amazon Music Delivered. But the granddaddy of all of these, and arguably the gold standard against which all other find themselves compared, is Spotify Wrapped.

This year saw Wrapped take a slightly different direction than in years past, with the introduction of “Your Spotify Wrapped AI Podcast.” Featuring synthetic DJs counting down your top songs across the year, we actually had a pretty good time with Spotify’s Wrapped podcast. But even as we were enjoying the experience, cracks were already beginning to show themselves in this glossy AI exterior — like the way Spotify’s hosts struggled to naturally talk about the way some of our listening tastes remained consistent month-to-month.

Let’s say we take the whole AI business out of the equation and just look at how well a job Spotify did at summarizing your year of listening. Even there, we’re hearing complaints. One theory that we’ve noticed pick up a bit of traction is one shared by Threads user elkhearted, suggesting that the reason Wrapped doesn’t feel as satisfying now as it had in the past can be tied to Spotify firing Lead Data Alchemist Glenn McDonald about a year ago. And without McDonald’s influence, Wrapped just doesn’t quite deliver the same magic.

The actual reason Wrapped came together the way it did is probably a lot more complicated that just McDonald’s absence alone, but we’re most curious what you think about the results:

Got a slightly more nuanced take on Wrapped 2024 than our pre-packaged poll options let you express? Well that is exactly the sort of thing we want to hear you tell us all about down in our comments.