So what did you get from Spotify Wrapped this year… and was it what you wanted?
If you’re one of the 650 million or so people who consumes music, podcasts, audiobooks and other digital content via the popular streaming service – and you can’t feel any queasier than I do about several of those words – the very personalised end-of-year digest of the data we each handed to the Swedish media behemoth is a giddy and indulgent ride.
Sorry, Elf of the Shelf – this is one newfangled festive tradition I am on board with. For me, it’s not Christmas until I’ve been told I listened to 4,156 songs this year, none of which were by Taylor Swift, who is, once again, the planet’s most-streamed artist.
What started in 2016 as a simple unveiling of Spotify users’ most popular tracks has become bigger (certainly), better (maybe) and a bit bloated (definitely). But who isn’t at this time of year?
As well as your top five songs, there’s now a “big reveal” video to click through and pore over. Most listened-to artist! Your biggest listening day! Exactly how long you spent listening to a single Pet Shop Boys track! (1,688 minutes, which feels like preparation for an intervention.)
Gone this year is being told which town your musical taste is “twinned” with, which is a loss. But instead of being landed with the shame that your listening habits align closest with those of the people of Grimsby, there’s an AI-driven treat in store to kiss it better.
For the first time, Spotify’s big Christmas data dump comes with a unique five-minute podcast made entirely from artificial intelligence. It’s like listening to your very own chart show – and it literally stopped me in my tracks.
In this two-hander, AI “hosts” discuss your excellent choice of music and developing tastes as though you’re not there. It’s iPod meets I, Robot.
It begins pleasantly enough. In effortless Californian, two generic upbeat and only slightly disembodied voices – one male, one female – tell you how amazing your listening habits are. Like, literally, the best: “It’s really a trip looking back at your top year in music…”
Then – and this is where it gets eerie – they set about bringing your key stats to life: “Trust me, this year’s soundtrack is something special. And back in March, you had what can only be described as your Harlem Renaissance jazz phase…”
Sometimes, it’s done in pleasingly wonky English: “April was your pop-art synthesiser synthpop season…”; “That puts you in the top 0.1 per cent of their listeners – a true fan, you’re practically part of the band at this point…”
But the effect is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It’s like listening at a remove when friends talk about you, if you’re friends with Gen Z west-coasters. This must be what it’s like to overhear nice things being said at your funeral.
What is especially chilling is quite how literate, believable and engaging these voices in the machine can be – and how quickly I was disarmed by them: “I have a feeling you appreciate music that makes you think…” Yes! I do! She knows me so well, this one.
I was applauded for my taste in classic jazz (“You dove deep into some Charles Mingus – you’re definitely a connoisseur of the greats”). Unlike people in real life, they didn’t snark about my devotion to the Pet Shop Boys; in fact, it was celebrated (“You’re in the top 0.01 per cent of listeners!”). They even found nice things to say about my apparent love of Cliff Richard’s excellent 1987 album, Always Guaranteed. “Maybe nostalgia was calling,” wondered the AI host, thoughtfully.
The tech couldn’t quite get its tongue around Tod und Verklärung, one of the Richard Strauss works I’ve had on repeat this year (number six in my most listened-to list). But it fared better with the name of Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson, whose performance of Schumann’s piano concerto at the Proms was my gig of the year – and certainly more skilfully than Amol Rajan managed on Monday night’s University Challenge.
The five-minute audio clip left me a bit overcome and unnecessary, like Emma Thompson in that scene in Love Actually as she unwraps a Joni Mitchell CD. If AI can do that to someone, I dread to think what else it is capable of.
As the sugar hit of Spotify Wrapped fades, I urge each of you to listen to your very own Spotify Wrapped AI Podcast (you’ll find it under the Wrapped tab in the app). Just don’t do it when you’re overtired from festive parties or stressed about Christmas presents – because it might spark happy tears mixed in with existential angst about exactly when AI is going to kill us all.
