You either love or loathe it, no? That 48 hours when every social media portal you consult spits out garish posts from friends, colleagues, your 2016-2019 chiropractor and your tech-savvy aunt in Blyth, all of whom are ready to solemnly (silently, reverently) convey the depths of their very souls to you now. This is their moment. And they do this by disclosing that Mudvayne and Cradle of Filth were their top-played artists of the year.
Are we supposed to respond in kind to this unsolicited (and oft unwanted) information? Are we meant to feel emphatically drawn to their tastes and monosyllabic comments ('typical', 'so this' and such) following these revelations? Oh, I know why Spotify Wrapped became such a hit: people love to be told about themselves (see also, 23andMe) but honestly, I've never liked any of it – until now.
Because this is the year Replay killed it, isn't it? This is the year the Cupertino giant bulldozed the quaint, skittishly-organised Apple cart of CDs in your phone and actually got granular on your timely listening habits. This is the year Apple went 'right, let's give 'em the ultimate play-by-plays, in the app, to their emails and in fact everywhere we can post it. Let's deliver a video and multiple charts featuring their most-loved genres. Let's give 'em months, minutes, commentaries, the lot'.
This year, nobody's sharing that 2023 gif – you know the one: beautiful airbrushed RuPaul image on the left labelled 'Spotify Wrapped'; cheap RuPaul-could-be-Rick-James Christmas bauble on the right, labelled 'Apple Music Replay'.
So, Spotify Wrapped 2024 failed – and all (human) eyes are turning to AI
I'm not alone in thinking Spotify Wrapped was an epic fail this year (not helped by the fact that some users said Wrapped wasn't working at all initially). No, our very own Rowan Davies penned his disappointment on this year's offering.
But it's the Reddit thread entitled 'Not gonna lie, this years Replay is 100x better than Wrapped. Spotify delivered a barebones experience that offered no payoff' that really resonated with me personally. Why did Apple Music come into its own in 2024, while Spotify failed? Yes, Apple Music beat Spotify to the punch this year, but that's not the issue. Instead, it was the all-too-obvious AI that was used to give listeners their hotly anticipated listening stats. Simply put, leaving our precious music tastes in the hands of watchword-of-2024 Artificial Intelligence was a bad move. AI as it is doesn't pass muster.
Spotify users complained of a woefully 'barebones' approach to statistics within Wrapped – no 'Me in 2023'-style cards, no Sound Town and not one mention of the word 'genre'. Particular hatred was reserved for Spotify's new Wrapped AI Podcast, with one Reddit poster announcing "That was straight up dumb. I made it about 30 seconds before I turned it off."
Is it stating the obvious to suggest that in the same way that AI can't do hands yet, perhaps it can't understand the emotional relationship between the human ear, some music and the brain it feeds? One does wonder.
Apple threw everything it had at Replay, giving us the time capsule we wanted
Apple Music Replay, meanwhile, was a hoot! I received detailed breakdowns of my listening habits month-by-month (Apple Music serves up monthly Replays anyway, but it's nice to have a slick, pleasantly-packaged 12-month compilation) plus my top genres, minutes I played them, number of artists I streamed throughout the year, my top artists, number of albums, most-played tracks… I could go on!
As TechRadar's audio editor and still-occasional dancer, my end-of-year music metrics are often an irritation, a hornet's nest of 'Meh, that's hardly reflective of my actual taste in music though'. I'm contractually obliged to listen to certain reference tracks when testing products for our audio equipment reviews, plus I've doubtless got another Greatest Showman-themed gig to rehearse (and much as I enjoy Loren Allred's Never Enough, I don't love it that much). I also hold accounts with several of the best music streaming services and need to chop-n-change between them, dipping into the various audio file formats and hi-res music credentials to hear what I need to hear.
So, my Tidal playlists (Tidal doesn't go in for annual roundups – it prefers to ask you to 'dig deeper', as if you're writing a dissertation on your listening habits) look a lot different to my Spotify downloads. If you looked only to my Qobuz account, you'd think I listen exclusively to classical music (mostly Dvořák, but I was in one of his operas, you see), while my most-played Apple Music songs are undeniably skewed by the existence of Apple Music Sing, CarPlay and late-night 150-mile car journeys with far too much caffeine consumption over the past 12 months…
But still, some months are less work-intensive than others and thanks to Apple Music's Replay, my September roundup felt real to me, for the first time. It was indicative of my musical discoveries and continued loves during that month, like a little time capsule. I finally felt the pull of these roundups! I remembered excitedly downloading Fontaines D.C.'s Romance at Reading Festival – then buying it on vinyl (annoying how vinyl doesn't register in your Wrapped/Replay habits). I think Spotify's AI model just doesn't get this yet, and that's a big issue.
Apple Music still lags behind Spotify – in the best way
Want to combine your listening stats across different streaming platforms? There are probably ways to do it, with something like Last.fm then perhaps plugging into NotebookLM to make a Wrapped-beating end of year list, if you have the time and inclination to do so. An option I have used extensively is the B&W music app, which corrals all of your music streaming services into one place to offer them up as a whole entity – if you're paired to (and listening on) a B&W product, of course. But I digress; this feature is about how Apple Music Replay killed it and Spotify Wrapped stumbled in 2024.
Spotify Wrapped launched in 2016, while Apple Music Replay didn't arrive until 2019. I think it's fair to say that Apple Music has consistently felt three years behind Spotify ever since – a notable exclusion being the fact that Apple Music started offering hi-res music in 2021, while Spotify still hasn't managed to do that, despite its promises. And perhaps Apple Music Replay remains three years behind Spotify Wrapped in 2024. Only now, in a year that's seen the widespread introduction of it's-here-whether-you-like-it-or-not AI, that's suddenly become a very good thing.
