Spotify Wrapped 2024: Fans early await yearly music round up - but here's why they should wait a little longer

I’m not the only one - social media lights up every time the Swedish streaming giant even teases the prospect of Spotify Wrapped. This year is no different, with users receiving a pop-up from Wednesday, November 27 letting them know that the yearly round-up is on its way to them soon.

But hold on - it’s November 30. Unless one year now only counts as 11 months (or 10 month when Spotify previously only collated data from January 1 to October 31), users really aren’t getting a year-round review of their listening habits.

I’m irked by this, and not only because I forget until too late in the year that Wrapped is on the horizon and I don’t have time to scrub my data of the objectively embarrassing showtunes and niche Eurovision entries. It just really doesn’t paint a year-round picture.

New releases in the last month or so in the year have no chance of breaking to the data. In 2022, Little Simz released her fifth studio album ‘NO THANK YOU’ on December 12 which I had on regular rotation for a couple of weeks, but there’s was no sign of it in the Spotify Wrapped in either 2022, which launched one week earlier, or even the 2023 round-up, with the latter drowned out by 10 months of listening data.

Another argument made by some is that by eliminating data from later in the year, there is less risk of Christmas songs flooding the data and making the rest of the year’s round-up obsolete. But I say there’s nothing wrong with including Christmas hits, in fact it paints a more accurate picture of your overall listening habits.

And so justice for Wham!, justice for Mariah Carey, and justice for Shakin’ Stevens! Give artists like Little Simz their flowers and bring us Spotify Wrapped on December 31!