It has now become a common occurrence: every December Wrapped From Spotify, that is, that summary that the platform offers to each user of his most listened to music of the year, full of data and conclusions, as if it were an inevitable cultural event, a collective ritual that tells us who we were (musically) during the year. However, every time I see him he parades next to me He feedsI feel the same way: Are we celebrating the music or are we celebrating that a platform has watched us for 365 days and is now creating this amazing presentation for us with all this data?
They colloquially call it my “annual summary,” but in reality it is my “annual summary.” for him. It’s a report created after months of painstaking observation, and it’s packaged in animated graphics that serve as visual distractions. Minutes you listened to it? Artists of the year? Hours spent inside Playlists Without beginning or end? It all sounds like joy, friendliness, and a party dedicated to musical vanity, but in reality it hides another way to discipline ourselves: the more we believe that our lives fit into one of those things. Information boardsThe fewer questions we will ask about who decides what and how we listen.
How can Spotify talk about diversity when its algorithmic model pushes toward homogeneity, prioritizes functionality and ends up marginalizing the local? What’s the point in celebrating your “Top 5” while investing in systems capable of replacing those same artists with cheaper synthetic content?
Spotify wrapped It’s a huge, sophisticated sticking device that works even when the platform dares to tell you to your face what it thinks your true musical age is (this year, the great and very widespread novelty is that Spotify has calculated your musical age according to the decade in which you’ve listened the most: if you’ve consumed a lot of songs from the ’80s, it tells you it’s your fifties, and if you’re over sixty, it can calculate up to eighty-somethings). I go further: It works even when Spotify is having the worst year in its recent history. One marked by controversies surrounding its CEO’s investments in a weapons company, the exile of mid-sized groups, and the colonization of artists. forged Created using generative artificial intelligence, for scams using Streams Artificial or because ICE ads are happily circulating on the platform between Playlists for teens (while, ironically, Bad Bunny tops the list of most-streamed artists on the service).
None of this matters, for it is enough to light the world Wrapped So that everything is suspended; As if for a week, there were no consequences. During that period, the boycott is forgotten, political discontent fades, and the polygonal aesthetic of the Annual Digest covers everything in a layer of shared euphoria. It’s hard to resist: if everyone posts what they have SlidesHow will you stay out? he Wrapped It activates a FOMO identity in which participation is almost mandatory in order not to appear detached. And this social pressure only benefits the company: millions of users generate free advertising, and millions of artists thank them for positions that, in many cases, barely compensate for months of instability. Who dares to participate when the rest of the ecosystem acts as if this is a real cultural event and not a meme operation designed to continue diverting our attention?
“ICE ads are happily circulating on the platform among people Playlists For teens, Ironically, Bad Bunny tops the list of most listened to artists on the service.”
Wrapped It also reveals something else, even more perverse: the ease with which we have agreed to delegate our experience and memory to the control board. Before, we remembered our musical year through conversations, concerts, and handwritten recordings. Now we expect an interface to reveal to us what moved us, even though we know for a fact that the scales are rigged and we prefer repetition to affect or negative habits to conscious choices.
Confetti, messages from your favorite artists emulate intimacy, moving lines, and, depending on the platform itself, a lot of variety. “no one Wrapped “It’s the same thing,” you hear there. A charming story that makes us feel different from the rest. But how can Spotify talk about diversity when its algorithmic model pushes toward homogeneity, prioritizes functionality, and ends up marginalizing the local? What does it mean to celebrate you? summit 5 While they invest in systems capable of replacing these same artists with cheaper synthetic content?
The popular song Wrapped creates the illusion of a vibrant culture supported by a global community, when the reality is very different: not only do we accept that our sonic lives fit a corporate report, but we end up reinforcing the dangerous idea that the music that matters is only the one that can be measured.