Spotify users get excited every year about Wrapped, a summary of their musical year based on the songs they listened to most frequently.
And every year, at least for the past five years, Spotify drops a Wrapped feature that’s so polarizing it nearly outshines the most listened-to music of the year.
But for Spotify Wrapped 2024, the new stunt is called Your Music Evolution which assigns individuals ‘phases’ to their musical journey.
The phrases are largely nonsensical: “Western outlaw banjo country music,” “musical play with elements of opera Argentinian rock,” “extraterrestrial grind death metal.” As I have stated above, at least some of the words are genres.
The “phases” were claimed to be ‘at least partially selected by ‘machine learning’, which associated certain descriptions with particular tracks, Spotify said.
Some users said that those links are often rather weak, which is perhaps why the site is not enjoying a great deal of popularity.
“Pink pilates princess” was heard by enthusiasts of new pop royalty like Sabrina Carpenter, Charli XCX and Chappell Roan for listeners who marathoned the music of.
Pink and princess are both the titles of the songs on Roan’s first album, but what does pilates have to do with anything? Rhythmical compounding, or, may be, the alliterative rule of threes.
Some descriptions were beyond rationale and were best described as senseless. “Vampire football rap”? (This, for those who are at least rappers like Travis Scott and Future and their listeners.) Other unusual idioms included variations on the word ‘catwalk,’ ‘sweater weather,’ the term ‘mallgoth,’ and ‘pirate.’
Every single font – even Frutiger Aero, a glossy aesthetic that screams early 2000s Windows OS – made it into Wrapped this year.
A few courageous people risked it and shared their ‘Music Evolutions’ off Spotify. Semafor media editor Max Tani wasn’t tooting his own horn about having a “pumpkin spice banjo indie folk” winter.
“unbelievable how every year spotify manages to make listening to music – its core Business– deeply embarrassing,” Tani posted.
The split reaction to Your Music Evolution is that it reminded others of last year’s Wrapped or dressed users in a “Sound Town,” a real city similar to your musical profile.
As with many experiments, this experiment provided little insight into its users, other than that the residents of Burlington, Vermont have a keen ear for pop divas.
