Spotify Wrapped Doesn’t Reflect the Music That Actually Meant Something to Me in 2025

I almost didn’t write this blog post. I almost didn’t have to. That’s because a recent article in The Guardian by Liz Pelly called “This Spotify Wrapped season, don’t outsource your love of music to AI” kind of said what I was already going to say.

In the article, Pelly writes that the annual Spotify Wrapped campaign — part curated lists of most-listened to tracks and artists, and part marketing campaign for Spotify itself — “nudges listeners away from deep consideration and towards accepting a corporate-branded scorecard reflecting a very specific perspective on musical value. It encourages music fans to believe that the records they streamed the most must be the ones they liked the most, which is surely not always the case.”

She’s right. 

In my case, as I’ve noted multiple times over the years, the Wrapped wrap-up does not reflect the music I actually want to remember from the last 12 months. The songs, albums, and artists it says were my most-listened-to are not necessarily the ones I remember listening to the most. And sure, you could say the numbers don’t lie, but they don’t tell the whole story.

A good example of this is Billy Joel. Spotify said the Piano Man was one of my top artists of 2025. Maybe he was. I enjoyed the HBO documentary about him, and I listened to a bit of his music around the time I watched it. But there are definitely other artists I remember listening to more often.

Anyway, Pelly encouraged readers to “consider taking the time to write a list based on what you actually connected with.” I do that all year long with my annual Time Capsule playlist, which, essentially, is curated from my ever-changing Now playlist of all the music I’m into at any given time. If I deem a song “worthy,” or want to remember it for some other reason, it’s added to the Time Capsule playlist. Some songs I only listened to a handful of times, but they were meaningful.

The result is a soundtrack for my year that says more about what I actually cared about than the Spotify Wrapped wrap-up ever will, because so many tracks that are on the Time Capsule playlist have a particular context that made them worth adding. Listening to this playlist at the end of the year evokes memories of what I was doing when listening to the tracks, or what led me to include them in the first place.

For example, 2025 was another year where Israeli and Israel-related music was ever-present. In addition to tracks from my 2024 playlist that were still in constant rotation, I listened to songs from Yoni Bloch, Sasson Ifram Shaulov, Omer Adam, and Hanan Ben Ari this year. The war and the resulting political climate made me care about Eurovision again, and specifically, Israel’s representative, Yuval Raphael. Vince Vance & the Valiants’ “Bomb Iran” got a lot of play in June, for obvious reasons, as did Bob Marley’s “Iron Lion Zion.” When the hostages came home in October, I listened to the Homeland Concert version of “Habaita,” Shiri Maimon and Tamir’s cover of “Coming Home,” and Kosha Dillz’s “Habaita.”

I had a fantastic time in California over the summer, so I included some tracks to remind me of that, including “26 Miles (Santa Catalina)” by The Four Preps and “Celebrate Happy” by the Jonas Brothers. Upstream is a band that was playing at the Bridge Party in Pasadena, and I dug their version of “Brown Eyed Girl,” so that’s here. (63 Degrees also played at that event — notably, a brass-and-horn-driven cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” — but none of their tracks are on Spotify.) And I went to a concert by a Neil Diamond cover band, so I included “I Am…I Said,” at least in part because of its references to Los Angeles.

Several songs are on the playlist because I heard them in movies or on TV shows and liked them (even though I didn’t always love the movie or show itself). That includes multiple tracks from the soundtrack of F1 (a movie I loved), as well as tracks from Better Man, Everybody’s Live, Sinners, The Last of Us, Highest 2 Lowest, Deliver Me from Nowhere, John Candy: I Like Me, Nobody Wants This, Rental Family, Wicked: For Good, Marty Supreme, and Merrily We Roll Along.

That last one was a filmed version of the Broadway show, but I was happy to have seen multiple theatrical shows live this year, including Parade, Shucked, Buena Vista Social Club, Sunset Blvd, and the fantastic Broadway revival of one of my all-time favorite shows, Chess — though that last cast album isn’t out yet, so I’m using tracks by Tommy Korberg and Elaine Paige as a placeholder until it is. And I really dug Third Reprise’s 1980s pop take on “I’m Not That Girl,” from Wicked, featuring Darren Criss. [UPDATE 12/28: After Christmas, I went back to New York and saw Just in Time.]

I didn’t see as many concerts this year as I usually do, but I really enjoyed seeing Lawrence, my new favorite band, down in Providence. And my sister and I had a good time taking our mother to see Hugh Jackman live at Radio City Music Hall. I didn’t see Oasis live, but I enjoyed living vicariously through the people who did. And I’m very much looking forward to seeing Lily Allen live next year; her excellent album was a BFD toward the end of this year. (It’s worth noting that I did not see Coldplay live this year, either. Phew!)

Spotify told me my “listening age” was 21. I suppose a big reason for that is because I listened to a lot of Sabrina Carpenter, as well as Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran, Miley Cyrus, and Benson Boone. Probably too much. What can I say? I’m a sucker for good pop music. It’s probably why I was instantly hooked by Role Model’s “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out,” not to mention the irresistible sounds of RAYE’s “Where Is My Husband!” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” two inescapable year-end hits. (For the record, I didn’t listen to any Taylor Swift. Not intentionally, anyway, since her songs were used in so many Instagram Stories.)

I was bummed about the deaths of Sly Stone and Brian Wilson, so there are tracks by them here, too.

Of course, some artists seem to be on the playlist every year: The Lone Bellow, Maren Morris, Chris Stapleton, Eric Hutchinson, and Bruce Springsteen. Anderson East, Counting Crows, Robbie Williams, and James Morrison have been on the list in the past, and each returned with new music this year. So did Nate Ruess — though it was with The Format and not fun.

And so on and so forth.

The point is, Spotify Wrapped may (may!) highlight what I listened to most often, but it doesn’t reflect the music that actually means something to me. For that, I turn to my Time Capsule playlist. It helps me remember the music I actually cared about this year.