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Wrapped 2018 playlist not representative

Wrapped 2018 playlist not representative

Plan

Premium

Country

Belgium

Device

iPhone 6, Macbook Pro late 2015

Operating System

iOS 12, MacOS Mojave

 

My Question or Issue

Hello Spotify,

 

I just went through my 2018 Wrapped overview, however I am pretty dissatisfied with the "most listened songs"-playlist. Here's an overview of my situation:

It states I've listened to Spotify for a total of 19,443 minutes (324 hours) and that I listened to my favorite band (The National) for 202 hours. Now this I was expecting, since I barely listen anything else but them, looping through most of their albums most of the time. The "most listened songs" - playlist however features an awful lot of music I'm pretty sure I only listened a very few times in the past year and barely any The National songs. Also, the top songs mentioned on the Wrapped website (which I expected) were not to be found in that order in the playlist.

Did something go wrong in the algorithm, or does the algorithm prefer a variety of artists rather than the actual "most listened songs"? Is there any way to get an actual "most listened songs" playlist?

 

Thanks in advance,

Bram, a huge Spotify enthousiast!

Reply
35 Replies

Hey Bram, 

 

I'm having the exact same issue. I was a huge fan of this feature last year and the year before, with both my top songs of 2017 and 2016 playlists seeming pretty accurate. I was really looking forward to seeing what my 2018 playlist would look like but when I opened it this morning I was very disappointed. 

 

I recognise most of the artists, but in a lot of cases the songs in the playlist are ones I do not know. In other cases, bands that I know I only listened to once or twice have somehow made it into my top songs of the year. It's very strange and something seems off about the whole playlist. Not much of what I expected to be there (songs from the playlists I've been listening to the most this year) made it into the playlist. 

 

It's really disapointing. The Wrapped feature was something I was really looking forward to and something I thoroughly enjoyed last year. Hopefully we're not the only disastified customers and Spotify can do something about it! 

 

Seán. 

 

 

Same exact problem here! The right songs appear in the top 5 list, but none of them are in the playlist. Moreover, I barely know the songs included in that playlist 😕

I am additionally having this problem. My top artists and songs seem somewhat accurate in the snapshot but the actually top 100 playlist does not even have these songs and consists of mostly songs I've  haven't even heard of or have only listened to one or two times

Same problem here.

My wrapped playlist is mostly accurate, but I am missing some songs I know I listened to a lot.

 

 

I think the algorithm does prefer variety, the songs that didn't make the list are from artists I listened to a lot this year. And the songs that did make the list are from artists that I didn't listen to that much this year.

Mine is neither accurate on top songs nor on most listened. 

I mostly have songs and Artist that I do not know! 

 

Hey! I'm having the exact same problem! I totally hate it because I love the Top of the Year playlists, I'm that kind of obsessive being. It's usually pretty accurate but this year is totally insulting. I mean, there are artists that I listen to EVERY day, but in the Top 2018 list appear songs that I heard once, send to me by other people, music that really has no relevance for me or I really dislike. I am very sad and dissapointed and really hope they can fix this before the year ends.

Having exactly the same issue - while I recognise most of the songs, I know I've barely listened to them.

 

In a weird way, it looks like my least played songs on 2018. Not to mention none of my 2018 Wrapped top songs were included.

 

I realise it's probably not the most pressing issue for Spotify, but my 2017 top played was one of my favourite playlists for a long time. I love this feature and I'm very disheartened by this.

 

EDIT: Spotify's response to me reaching out about this was "This can happen for a number of reasons, but we’ll pass your feedback on for future campaigns." - big help folks.

 

+1. I've never even heard of some of the artists (probably were in discover weekly - which i don't play on repeat). They also said my favorite artist I played for 3 hours. I do like that band, a lot, but barely played them this year in comparison to some individual songs i listened to for more than 3 hours cumulative over the year. Please fix. Very disappointed!

I'm having the exact same issue. None of my Top 5 songs are in the Top 100 playlist? Seems like the playlists weren't properly made. Huge bummer given that I always loved having this playlist to look back at the year.

I think the easiest way to fix this is to allow the users interact with the playlist.

Does anyone know if Spotify is going to do anything to fix the problem? I always look forward to this playlist and this is a big disappointment!!

im starting to think someone else has been using my account because ive literally never heard of half the songs on there and dont recognise them when i listen.... very dissapointed tbh was looking forward to this. and i definitely havent given my account to anyone else 

I'm also having this issue. The Top 5 songs and artists from the recap are accurate, but those songs don't even appear in the Top 100 playlist. The Top 100 playlist has artists I listen to, but the songs they chose are ones I've never listened to, or listen to much less often than songs that do not appear on the playlist.


Also, I'm getting the bug I've seen others complain about that half of my Tastebreakers playlist is country music, while that is perhaps my least-listened genre.

I think something must be wrong with their algorithm because I'm experiencing the same thing. I know it's not that big of a deal, but I look forward to this all year! How can it possibly be that a French lesson I listened to once while driving to school is in my Top 100? How does that make sense when my top artists aren't even in the list? Honestly I think there are only 5 or 6 songs in the list that I listened to more than 10 times. I'm so bummed 😞

 

Spotify, please fix this!!

Same here, and I am SO upset. I've been texting my bff the past week, anxiously awaiting the release of this playlist. I was so upset to see that MAYBE 3/100 songs actually belong in my top 100 played songs. 

 

Spotify - if you are reading this, is there a way we can reach out to you to get this corrected please?! 

 

Thank you so much.

Same issue here. My wrapped top five seems pretty accurate, but three of the songs aren’t even on my 2018 playlist, let alone other songs that are missing that I know I listened to a **bleep** of a lot.

 

Pretty disappointed considering how much I loved the 2016 and 2017 playlists, even though I know my 2017 playlist was missing a song.

I have got the same problem, this also happend in 2017 when I thought there was a lot other music I was listing much more. How is that possible?  

 

I've got the same problem. Luckily I have Last.FM that also has all the data. Here's what I found

 

  • From my top 10 tracks last year on Last.Fm, only 6 came back in the Spotify list. The entire actual top 3 tracks were missing completely from the Spotify list.
  • My top artist was by a mile a hardcore punk bank, but instead Spotify went for Everything Everything, probably because its mainstream and set up for me to 'thank' them, and the punk band wasn't
  • Only 29% from my Spotify top 100 list, also returns in my Last.FM (actual) top 150 list on Last.FM (I decided to go for my top 150 because Spotify only includes 3 songs from one album, yet shockingly low results)
  • I have 1 song that was played by someone once on a party in februari, made the list, from a genre and artist that I otherwise NEVER listen to. 
  • 5 songs that I played twice this year
  • 11 songs that I played 3 times this year
  • Starship - We Built This City comes back on every year list for me, while actually only listened to 3 or 4 times that year (not even close to making the top 150 for each year).
  • Apparently I only listened to 41k minutes of music (about 2 hr a day), while working from home and having Spotify on atleast 6 hours a day. If I calculate the average song length with data from minutes devided by the number of scrobbles from Last.FM, it would come to 2:45 songs. Impossible. 

 

I knew last years it was a bit off, but most of it was accurate. This year over 70% is off, giving me a list with songs I barely know or 3 tracks from the same album I only listened to a couple of times. Such a let down. 

According to Spotify Wrapped my most listened to  artist was KUN, which is a Chinese artist that I’ve never heard of. All of the other listed artists made sense, as I’m fans of them. I wonder if Spotify’s tracking system got hacked. 

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