Spotify Wrapped Is Coming Soon—What We Know About This Year’s Iteration

Published 15 days ago
Conor Murray
Music And Sound Streaming Platforms Stock Photos
(Photo by Nikos Pekiaridis/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Topline

Spotify teased the release of its highly anticipated 2024 Spotify Wrapped on Wednesday and reminded users to make sure their apps are up-to-date so they can access the playlists when they’re released—though the company stopped short of sharing the release date.

Key Facts

The platform suggested Wednesday that Wrapped is coming soon by showing users a reminder to listen to their past years’ Spotify Wrapped and saying “the best time of year is right around the corner.”

Spotify also put out a press release Wednesday encouraging users to ensure their apps had the latest update so they don’t miss any features included in the Wrapped package.

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Spotify teased its upcoming Wrapped package earlier in the year with a Halloween-themed post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that confirmed data collection would continue past Oct. 31 to an unspecified date.

The Spotify Wrapped packages, customized graphics that tell a Spotify user their top five most-streamed songs and artists in a calendar year—and their top 100 songs—used to stop data collection on Oct. 31, USA Today reported in 2022.

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Spotify told users in an in-app pop-up message last week that “2024 is almost a wrap,” urging users to update the app so they can access their Wrapped packages when they arrive.

When Will Spotify Wrapped 2024 Release?

No release date has been announced, but Spotify Wrapped has typically dropped at the end of November or early December. Spotify released its Wrapped packages on Nov. 29 last year, one day earlier than the previous year, when the packages were released on Nov. 30. Users are typically given access to Spotify Wrapped through an in-app pop-up, and the package is formatted as a slideshow with Instagram Story-ready graphics.

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Will There Be A New Spotify Wrapped Feature?

It’s not clear. In some past years, Spotify has included new elements to its Wrapped package. Last year it matched users to a “Sound Town” based on their “most-streamed artists of the year, and the way in which those artists are streamed in other cities.” And in 2019, Spotify gave users a look back at their trends over the decade. In an Instagram post Wednesday, Spotify shared a video of its logo changing to represent various albums released this year and said: “This year contained multitudes. So will your Wrapped. Coming Soon.”

Tangent

Social media users have frequently joked they wait until Spotify stops tracking their data so they can safely listen to music they’d be embarrassed by if it ended up in their Spotify Wrapped. More than 200,000 users liked an X post last week from a user who said her Spotify Wrapped is “going to be so embarrassing this year,” and last year, the Washington Post referred to November and December as “cheat months” where users can listen to holiday music and show tunes safely without fear of them popping up on Spotify Wrapped.

Key Background

Spotify began its Wrapped marketing campaign in 2016, and began issuing Instagram Story-shareable graphics to users as part of their Wrapped packages in 2019. The Wrapped campaign has been a huge marketing hit for the streaming platform: Spotify said more than 156 million users accessed their Wrapped package in 2022, up from 120 million the year prior. Social media analytics company SproutSocial found 400 million posts had been made about Spotify Wrapped on X in the three days following its 2022 release, up 15% from the year before. Spotify typically unveils new features for the Wrapped campaign each year. In last year’s edition, each user was assigned a “sound town,” a city that matches their music taste, leading to viral jokes on social media that Burlington, Vermont, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, may be home to large communities of queer artists and LGBTQ listeners. In 2022, listeners were assigned listening personality types based on the Meyers-Briggs personality test.

Further Reading

Spotify Wrapped 2023 Comes Soon: Here’s How It Became A Viral And Widely Copied Marketing Tactic (Forbes)

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