[…] 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.
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 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.
I only stick with spotify because it has the best support on linux
Can any linux users can share their experience with other platforms?
Qobuz can be installed with bottles and works pretty well.
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.
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
Bandcamp? works good in a browser and supports artists the most
I think Bandcamp is the only platform where I have actually purchased music in the past decade. It seems like a decent model, and I like getting FLAC versions of a physical album I get.
Recently got the newest Godspeed You! Black Emperor album off Bandcamp. Great shit as always.
Seconded on Bandcamp, though I don’t stream through it. I just buy albums and play them on whatever music player I have installed. Usually VLC or Amarok!
Tidal has no official Linux app, which is shocking considering their demographic. But a hero has made an app that gets pretty close. Under the hood it’s the web client with some add-ons to support full quality streaming. The user experience is generally fairly close to an official app.
I used soundiiz to convert all my content over, and of probably over 10,000 songs there were less than 100 unavailable, so library isn’t a concern. The increased quality is nice, but the big reason I choose tidal is that instead of doing unnecessary stuff like podcasts they pay artists better. As much as 3X according to some things I’ve read. I have not verified those numbers.
YouTube music works great, just gotta use an unofficial app
I use YouTube Music and I noted the exact same problem this year.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Dropped Spotify after the CEO said artists music weren’t worth anything and raised their annual fee at the same time. Trash company
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.
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.
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
I just want unlimited audiobook listening this 15 hours thing is bullshit. I nearly dropped spotify the second I got that notification out of spite.
But you didn’t drop them and therefore told them via your spending/usage that you’re ok with this 15 hour thing (i don’t use spotify so i don’t know what that is)
After 15 listening hours they let you finish the chapter then block listening until the next month and its a stupid amount of money to top up. Unfortunately I have all my music and podcasts tied to the base service and thats the only thing keeping me there. If I’m paying a monthly fee I feel entitled to unlimited anything.
Which means you’re on Spotify Premium (as am I). Pro tip: Go to your subscription settings and choose the cheaper tier. They’re charging you for that 15 hours, because the cheaper tier only removes the 15 hours of audiobooks.
If you’re that mad at them you should take differeng action. That’s how they learn. What they are learning from your current action is that you are okay with what they’re doing.
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.
Wasnt aware of this issue. Mine was accurate.
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 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?
