The holiday season is upon us, and with it comes an end-of-year gift for data, music, and marketing lovers: Spotify Wrapped.
Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny was named the most popular artist for the fourth time, dethroning Taylor Swift.
The music streaming giant unveiled its annual report on Wednesday, giving hundreds of millions of users around the world a look at the best songs, artists, podcasts and other audio that have filled their ears over the past year (give or take a month and change).
Spotify isn't the only music streamer to provide an annual look at data collected from consumers' online lives. But since its launch about ten years ago, Wrapped has become one of the most anticipated. despite criticism from users.
Chart-topping artists continue to dominate
Bad Bunny, the reggaeton artist and then some, became the most streamed artist in the world in 2025, earning more than 19.8 billion streams. He is followed by Swift, The Weeknd, Drake and Billie Eilish (in that order).
Swift has been ranked number one in the world for the past two years, winning it in 2023 and holding it until 2024. Bad Bunny held the coveted title for three straight years starting in 2020, and now he's back on top.
The most listened to album in the world is Bad Bunny. I need to take more photos followed by K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack and three 2024 releases: Billie Eilish's Hit me hard and softSZA SOS Deluxe: LANA and Sabrina Carpenter Short and sweetin that order.
The most popular song title belongs to the collaboration between Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga. Die with a smilewhich has amassed over 1.7 billion streams. Then it's Eilish Birds of the same feather Mars and Rose APT.Alex Warren Ordinary and Bad Bunny DtMF.
How does Spotify compile Wrapped reports?
Spotify collects listening data from January 1st until around mid-November.
This gives the company time to complete the finishing touches and present the report to users by early December. But that also means your streaming habits in late November and December won't be included, so your favorite holiday songs or other year-end hits might not be on the list.
When choosing the best songs, artists and – for the first time this year – albums to appear on Spotify Wrapped, the platform takes into account a combination of what you stream and how long you listen.
According to Spotify, users must listen to at least 30 tracks of more than 30 seconds each to get the best songs. For artists, users need to listen to at least five unique artists for more than 30 seconds. And in order to get into the top album, users must listen to at least 70 percent of the tracks of one album.
The Spotify Wrapped social media trend is helping some Canadian musicians get a boost by reminding fans of the tunes they loved that year.
The company has confirmed that data is collected evenly across all platforms and that “offline” streaming will also be counted if the device comes online again in the weeks leading up to Wrapped's launch.
Meanwhile, listening using Spotify's “private mode” feature won't contribute to a higher ranking, but will still count toward your total time spent on the platform. And Spotify claims that “background sounds” such as white noise are filtered out.
Mark Khazan, senior vice president of marketing and partnerships at Spotify, said his team started thinking about ending 2025 the day last year's report was released.
“This is a year-long effort that no doubt impacts all of Spotify's functions,” Khazan told The Associated Press. He noted that the first day is to see what users think of the newly released Wrapped.
What's new in Spotify Wrapped this year?
As every year, there are several new features. These include the introduction of Top Albums, a fan leaderboard showing users where they rank in an artist's streams, and an Age of Listening feature that compares a user's streaming habits to those of their age range.
There is also something called “Wrapped Party”, an interactive feature that allows users to compare their Wrapped with other Spotify users.
These additions are a change from last year, when some Spotify users complained on social media that Wrapped, which undergoes design changes every year, was minimalist in 2024. They said it lacks previous features such as “Top Cities”, “Audio Auras” and “Top Genres”. The latter was restored in 2025.
Other features that will be overhauled in 2025 include Top Songs, which will now allow users to see how many times they've streamed their top 100 tracks, and the Top Songs Quiz.
How is AI used?
Among the backlash Spotify received last year was speculation about what role artificial intelligence played in the Wrapped compilation.
The most notable use of AI in Spotify 2024 Wrapped was a companion podcast powered by generative AI. Spotify didn't repeat the podcast this year, but it is introducing another feature, Archive, which uses a larger language model to segment your listening into specific days.
According to Khazan, this is the most AI-focused part of Wrapped 2025. But today, the technology continues to be complemented more widely across Spotify's technical operations, including expanding the scope of its annual report.
“Wrapped has human creativity at its core,” Hazan said, pointing out that hundreds of people work on the tally each year. He noted that technologies such as artificial intelligence are helping to “speed up” and “improve” the product so it can reach the platform's more than 700 million users.
