December heralds the promise of snowy roads, winter break and platefuls of holiday food —  and it means Spotify Wrapped season is upon us once again.

Music streaming platform Spotify dropped its annual music review called “Wrapped” on Dec. 3, giving users a peek into their listening habits from January to mid-November. University of Minnesota students reflected on what this year’s musical roundup meant to them.

Spotify started Wrapped in 2015 under the name “Year in Music.” They added the “Your Top Songs” category and rebranded to “Wrapped” in 2016, becoming the report users are familiar with today.

Every user’s Wrapped is a personalized compilation of their most-listened-to songs, artists, genres and more streamlined into one tap-through experience. That being said, some students remain suspicious.

Third-year Audrey Notsch said her top artist was Lady Gaga and each of her top-five songs came from Gaga’s discography. She found it hard to believe that Gaga dominated her yearly listening.

“After last year, I haven’t liked the Wrapped,” Notsch said. “They’re using more AI now, and I just don’t believe it.”

Sharing a photo of one’s Wrapped online has become a social phenomenon over the years, so much so that people circulate memes of Wrapped screenshots with their artists and songs blacked out.

This need for complete transparency online coincides with the lingering effects of cancel culture. 

With the public constantly weighing in on music artists’ actions and their value as artists, it’s not surprising many are hesitant to claim who their number one is. Post a Wrapped with the wrong top artist, and others might look at you differently.

Wrapped is purely numbers. It doesn’t reflect when you fell asleep, and the same song played all night, or when your friend put One Direction on in the car for your entire road trip. The results often feel wrong because they reflect a data-driven narrative, rather than the full story.

Third-year Hana Karim said she was shocked by her top artist: Drake.

“I play the same songs on repeat, and I guess I didn’t realize how much it added up,” Karim said. “I feel like the concept is good, but I definitely think there are some numbers that are skewed in it.”

Karim said she observed her peers sharing doubts about even the amount of time they spend listening to Spotify.

“I’ve talked to a lot of people, and they’re like, ‘Yeah, I didn’t even really realize I listen to this many minutes of music a day,’” Karim said.

Other students, including Connor Athens, fell on the opposite side of the spectrum. For Athens, whose top artist was the Belgian stoner metal band Gnome, Wrapped was almost too revealing.

“I find it extremely weird and embarrassing,” Athens said.

Debjit Gupta, assistant professor at the Binghamton University School of Management, told BingUNews that this hyper-customized information is what pulls people into Wrapped.

“Every year, you’re not listening to what others have done, or you’re not seeing other people’s information. You’re seeing information about yourself,” Gupta said.

Karim shared this sentiment, saying it was part of why she and many others gravitate towards the music platform.

“Overall, I definitely think it engages people more in Spotify; it’s a good marketing tactic,” Karim said.

But Spotify’s use of AI has started to trigger discussion amongst users.

Spotify added a Spotify Wrapped AI podcast for the 2024 Wrapped, giving users an audio overview of their listening year. They also integrated Wrapped into the AI Playlist feature, where users could generate a playlist based on their Wrapped results.

The public didn’t take kindly to this transition. Reactions ranged from disappointment to rage, with users on online forums and social media marveling at the crazily named AI-generated genres like Mallgoth rock-ish Swancore. Many said they wish for a return to the more human-feeling versions of years prior.

This year, the new listening archive that gave users snapshots of their memorable streaming days was the only part of Wrapped powered by AI.

Some students were strongly against integrating AI.

Notsch said she felt uncomfortable by how Spotify monitors all listening habits, especially with AI being part of their system.

“The design sucks now, and there’s too much AI,” Notsch said. 

Karim said the AI makes Spotify more engaging, but is still unnecessary.

“I like to tap through all of it, but at the end of it, I’d be fine if they just showed me my top artists and songs,” Karim said.

Liz Pelly, music journalist and author of “Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist,” wrote that Wrapped pushes users into seeing their music intake like a “scoreboard.”

“What’s at stake is a sense of our own musical memories, and our own personal archives of our years,” Pelly wrote. “When we just accept that what a streaming service tells us about our music taste is true, there is much that we are not remembering, learning or celebrating about the music of our years and lives.”

Regardless of its debated accuracy and AI, Spotify Wrapped continues to dominate Instagram stories and conversations in the days following its launch. 

One thing is for certain: Wrapped has become an annual ritual we cannot resist.