Spotify users awoke this morning to a seasonal spectacle: the unveiling of Spotify Wrapped. The platform’s annual recap of the year in popular culture covers music, podcasts, and audiobooks, with tools enabling subscribers to track and share their 2024 listening tastes. Matt Luhks, senior director of global marketing, called Wrapped “a highly anticipated cultural moment,” and said that, “every year, our goal is to make Wrapped bigger and better than before.”
At a December 3 briefing, Molly Holder, senior director of product personalization, said that “personalization is at the core of everything we do,” and explained how AI will deliver individualized Spotify data to the listening audience. Holder promised functions including “a data story called Your Musical Evolution,” letting users review how their listening habits have changed, and a Spotify Wrapped AI Podcast, built with Google’s NotebookLM, that speaks to users about the artists, songs, albums, and genres they enjoyed during the year. (The AI podcast is available for markets in the U.S., U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Canada Ireland, and Sweden.)
Most Wrapped features cater to music and podcast audiences, and audiobook listeners shouldn’t yet expect the on-platform Easter eggs and animations created to surprise fans of artists like Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny. For context, Sulinna Ong, global head of editorial, said Swift was the global top artist for the second year in a row, with more than 26.6 billion streams; The Tortured Poets Department garnered 300 million streams in a single day and more than 1B streams in one week.
Because 2024 was Spotify's first full year invested in audiobook formats and production, the Wrapped data experience will be less granular for the audiobook crowd. These are the “early days in our journey,” said Rebecca McGuire, manager of audiobook partnerships and licensing. Wrapped will reward listeners who quickly joined the platform with “a personalized message for being an early adopter,” and Spotify users can explore a new editorial hub, where they will find curated lists of the top audiobooks in mystery, romance, and other categories.
“Users are not getting a personalized Wrapped experience this year,” but “huge spikes in listening” foretell growth in the sector, McGuire added. “People love sharing their best books of the year, and we hope it’s going to be an exciting time of discovery.”
For the first time, Wrapped announced its global top 10 audiobooks in Premium and anointed a global top author, Sarah J. Maas. According to McGuire, Maas is “breaking audiobook streaming records” on the platform, with A Court of Thorns and Roses in first place on Premium’s U.S. and global top 10 lists, and A Court of Mist and Fury and A Court of Wings and Ruin making both lists too. McGuire said Maas “does have a heads-up” about this distinction, “and we have a pretty great video message” to share with fans.
Notably, the platform is directing resources to Spotify for Authors, an analytics and promotion program launched in November. McGuire said that publishers and authors will receive 2024 Wrapped for Authors information, customized with “eight different data stories” that provide insight into audience demographics, listener tastes in music and other content, and the times of the day, week, and month when audiences are most likely to engage with audiobook content.
Global marketing director Luhks said Spotify has “already started for next year,” preparing the rollout of Wrapped 2025. “It’s a real cross-functional effort from across the company.”
“Honestly, more than anything, our goal is to bring in more listenership,” McGuire said of Spotify Audiobooks’ outlook. Amid the excitement of Wrapped, “we want to find new people who might not have thought of themselves as audiobook listeners and fans.”
