Why the End of Year ‘Wraps’ Have Us Hooked More Than Ever?

If you’re anything like me, you’ll agree that as soon as Christmas and New Year nears, the suspense begins to build around the release of the ultimate gift for music lovers. And of course, I’m referring to Spotify Wrapped – the most popular audio streaming subscription service, boasting over 640 million users globally. When will it be released? And, more importantly, what will it say about our musical taste this year?

When this magical culmination of all my 2024 musical preferences is placed before my eyes in a craftily curated playlist that perfectly describes my year, I can’t help but reminisce on how these ‘wraps’ have infiltrated social media platform after platform. It has hopped on the ever-spinning hamster wheel of trends that everyone has enjoyed as we wrap up 2024.

Since making its debut in 2016, Spotify Wrapped has worked to reflect individual users and helps them celebrate how they spent their year listening. However, is it just me, or does it seem that this year has been the most influential yet, reaching beyond just the everyday Spotify users? What was once a celebration of users' musical preferences and a trip down memory lane has now evolved into a booming trend that artists are working and breathing for.

This is exactly what this new trend encapsulates: your activity, your preferences, and your favourites. It has quickly become a phenomenon, building suspense as we wait eagerly for our yearly stats. It has us on the edge of our seats, wondering: How many minutes did we spend listening? What track caught our attention most this year? Our data is surveyed all year round for this one perfect gift – and we can’t help but love it; after all, it’s personalised for each of us!

But this year, it hasn’t stopped with Spotify. I was very surprised when I received a wrap-like summary of my Duolingo activity. It told me I used the app so much that I was in the top 1% of Spanish learners, and quickly shamed me with how many mistakes I had made. But this yearly round-up was impossible to ignore; it was Spotify Wrapped-inspired. And as I’ve heard, Xbox has also jumped on the ‘wrapped’ bandwagon. Players receive an early Christmas present with ‘My Year on Xbox,’ allowing them to relive their biggest achievements, game stats, and best moments. Genius.

As we come to the start of a new year, we always talk of reminiscing our best moments: songs we had on repeat, artists we never thought we’d love. We reflect on how we’ve changed as the year has spun round on its axis. But now, the ‘wrapped’ trend does it for us and ignites nostalgia for the last twelve months of our lives. A year’s summary for us to enjoy and reminisce about.

But most recently, I’ve found this trend doesn’t stop with the fans and consumers – it now exists for the artists who so generously give us their work. With this ever-growing trend, our favourite artists can watch themselves climb the ranks of best artists and promote their work by making it onto the global Spotify Wrapped charts. And maybe this is for our entertainment, or perhaps it has some consumerist undertones, but whichever it is, it gives us the content we eagerly await all year round.

Spotify itself revealed that, through the charts, we can recognise emerging artists like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter, who skyrocketed to the top of the charts throughout the last year, while Taylor Swift is, once again, re-crowned the most-streamed artist globally, with three of her albums making the top ten streamed albums this year. We find out who’s come in hot this year – but artists can also celebrate with their fans. They even get to thank them personally in a video provided in Spotify’s Wrapped.

This experience (and the notion of a yearly wrap in general) has allowed us to celebrate our top songs, albums, podcasts, audiobooks, and artists. To celebrate what stopped us in our tracks and made us listen to them over anything else. The suspense it annually brings as we wait for its release ignites the promotion of an artist’s work, encouraging those who haven’t yet listened to tune in, and letting the artists celebrate among those who already do. This ‘wrapped’ and reminiscing trend encourages the art of listening to music, helping those you like reach the top of the charts. It’s competition, but it’s competition tailored to our preferences. Competition that celebrates not only a listener’s devotion but also an artist’s hard work – something that will never go out of style.

Words by Amelia Cropley