Spotify Wrapped And The Need For Emotion

Tomorrow, I’ll start my annual look at the music I have enjoyed over the last year. 2024×12 will bring you a dozen songs that have become my favourites.

It’s a far cry from the optimised for sharing Spotify Unwrapped campaign, which this year offers not just computer-generated playlists but AI podcasters, synthetic DJs, and blocky slideshows. It feels like a 16-bit Commodore Amiga graphical demo to distract you as Spotify reinforces the songs it presented to you during the year. 

Seriously, instead of the anti-capitalist power of Bob Vylan, Spotify pushed a cutesy neon “oh you scamp! Look at how many minutes you spent listening to the biggest chart hits of the year!” This is the exact sort of contrast that artists like, er, Bob Vylan, are calling out.

 Ah, but how can Spotify know that when I insist on using the open-source VLC media player on my own hardware? If my player doesn’t tell Spotify what I’ve been listening to, how can the dominant force in mainstream music offer me a hypnotic presentation to share at the end of the year and push the Spotify logo across my timeline?

Because that’s a feature, not a bug.

I’d argue this is one of the best reasons to use a standalone or sandboxed audio player with hand-curated playlists and transfer audio files purchased through artist-friendly stores. I can rely on emotion rather than economics to decide what my yearly Top Twelve sounds like.