[…] 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.
Mine says my most played artist is Necroticgorebeast. I’ve never even heard of them. And that name is just so Repugnant!
My wife got Taylor Swift and she never listens to her. My first thought was it must be some kind of hallucination because that doesn’t seem like actual data to me. Even an occasional listen shouldn’t make her top artist.
I’ve always just ignored these lists because I play music for my kids’ bedtime so it’s on every night, all night - therefore my data is always skewed towards kids songs.
Also - my original post is a little cheeky. They’re one of my favourite bands and their latest album is called “Repugnant.” LOL
Switched to Napster this year. Best artist payout.
How old is this? Why is play music here?
If artist payout is your primary concern, take a look at qobuz. They pay even more than napster and tidal.
Or actually buy albums lol
Napster still exists?
To be clear, no streaming company is paying royalties on a per-stream basis, it’s basically always ((total revenue-platform cut)/share of total amount of streams).
So the artists are not really getting more money because you’re streaming on one platform or the other, they are all getting roughly the same amount out of what you’re paying on a monthly basis.
Slow news day? Who gives a literal fuck
This is happening because Spotify laid off half it’s staff and thought it could get away with it.
Not every news story needs to be earth shattering. Some can be about mundane things people enjoy.
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]
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.
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.
Listen here, dummy, “AI”. Do you understand?
/s
I think that “take my whiskey meat” song is Hozier. It was popular this year. Maybe you listened to it?
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.
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.
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
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.
Last.fm is really great for tracking, it’s been around for forever too, no idea why it isn’t more popular.
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.
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?
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.
Can’t report the same problem. Mine looked very sane for my listening habits.
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
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
Listen to the podcast. It’s… Awful. The AI voices trying to do radio show-style things like spelling out some letters of words or enunciating oddly is a whole level of cringe. Plus my podcast was full of hallucinations. Very obviously saying one of my top songs was by a different one of my top artists.
My wrapped stats weren’t super off, but they were off. Clearly some artists they favor or punish in rankings. Whether thats intentional, buggy code, or hallucination, eh, who knows.
Either way, it was a reminder that ive been wanting to switch to tidal for a while. The day list used to be really good, too, but it has had a noticeable drop in quality since the last round of layoffs, and it shows a lot more evidence of being AI-based rather than algorithm-based.
I only stick with spotify because it has the best support on linux
Can any linux users can share their experience with other platforms?
YouTube music works great, just gotta use an unofficial app
Do you use the official Spotify client or a third party one like ncspot? Not that the latter will remain for long now considering API changes on Spotify’s end.
Official.
Yeah, if they kill off the official app and neuter the other linux based choices then i’ll move on
I think Deezer has an electron app or something it uses, but it’s worked great for me so far. It costs the same aa Spotify the last I checked, and has a comprable selection.
Qobuz can be installed with bottles and works pretty well.
