As music fans eagerly awaited the release of Spotify Wrapped, worldwide searches for ‘When does Spotify Wrapped come out?’ surged an astonishing 5,000% over the last month.

Last year many Spotify users were confused that their ‘2024 Wrapped’ didn’t align with their actual listening habits. This inspired the music experts at SeatPick to uncover why your Spotify Wrapped might not be accurate…

There can be many contributing factors as to why your Spotify Wrapped might feel ‘off’, even if the numbers are technically correct, the story it tells can feel inaccurate.

6 reasons why your Spotify Wrapped might be wrong

1. The cut off time

Although Spotify has never officially revealed the cut-off date for Spotify Wrapped, it is said to be around late October to mid November, so your newer, more memorable listening habits won’t have been factored in.

2. Short songs generate more plays

A song's duration plays a part in your Wrapped, a stream must last for at least 30 seconds to be counted, this applies to both music and podcasts. Shorter songs also generate more plays, as in Wrapped, the ‘play count’ sometimes matters more than time spent. For example, a 1:30 hyperpop track played 5 times trumps your 8-minute prog rock track played once.

If you listen to genres with shorter average track lengths, they get over-represented.

3. Algorithmic playlists skew numbers

If you listen to generic playlists, such as ‘Discover Weekly’, ‘Release Radar’, ‘Your Daily Mixes’ or radio based on an artist, Spotify counts those plays towards those artists, even if you didn’t actively choose them. This is how a lot of people end up with top artists they hardly remember.

4. Background listening distorts your stats

Spotify has no way to know your intent of listening, so if you put on lo-fi whilst working, or fall asleep to ambient playlists, let playlists autoplay or use Spotify on a smart speaker all day, those hours tend to dominate your Wrapped and push your actual faves down.

5. Your most ‘marketable’ parts of your data are pushed

Despite Spotify Wrapped creating a social movement every year, it was initially introduced as a marketing product, not an actual statistical report. Spotify most likely chooses the most fun narrative, and not the most complete data. Wrapped is designed for social sharing, not accuracy.

6. Spiked listening patterns

If you obsessively listened to one artist for two weeks straight at some point in the year, but then never again, they might still show up in your top 5 because Wrapped is said to favour intense listening clusters.

"Spotify Wrapped Is Not A Comprehensive Analytical Report"

Gilad Zilberman, CEO at ticket platform SeatPick rounds off: “Spotify Wrapped is fun and intentionally dramatic, but isn’t necessarily a precise reflection of your musical identity. It’s a highlight reel built for social sharing, and not a comprehensive analytical report.

Wrapped compresses a full year into a narrative Spotify thinks might look exciting on Instagram, even if it glosses over context, gets distorted by background listening, shared devices, or algorithmic playlists.

If you are curious to uncover the real data on your listening habits, there are many third party tools you can seek out that offer real data led stats.”