2025 was the first year I hadn’t looked forward to Spotify Wrapped since 2016.
After the first Wrapped launch, I eagerly awaited the moment each year when I would finally learn about my music listening habits.
Even better, I could then shove my interests in the face of my peers without coming across as obnoxious.
However, my attraction to Spotify rapidly lessened over the past year, culminating in my cancellation of a decade-long subscription in August.
As people posted their Spotify Wrapped playlists and shared discussions on Spotify’s bizarre perception of their listening age, I expected to feel left out.
However, my music app (Tidal) had quietly provided me with the only thing I actually care about.
Thus, as the Wrapped posts slowly disappear from my feed, I feel content with knowing that cancelling my Spotify subscription was one of the best decisions I’ve made all year.
The classic Wrapped features are the only ones I care about
Does anyone actually care about your listening age?
Credit:Â Spotify
Much of the discussion about Wrapped in recent years has been around how Spotify presents your listening habits.
Remember how in 2021 Spotify told you what your “Audio Aura” was? Probably not, as it didn’t make any sense. What about in 2023, when you could find out which city listened to the same music as you do?
And before it fades into the mist of irrelevance like its predecessors, let’s acknowledge again how Wrapped 2025 confused us all with comments on our listening age.
However, two features have stuck with Wrapped since its inception. Your top songs and artists of the year. In the end, that’s all we cared about.
Each year’s gimmick was fun to talk about, but it didn’t really matter. We wanted to know and share which song and artist combo makes us unique.
I’m sure there’s a lot of psychology behind this, none of which I’m qualified to talk about, but you don’t need to hold a PhD to know that we care about the music we listen to.
So when my Tidal dropped its yearly answer to Wrapped, I pounced on it with the same eagerness I opened Wrapped each year.
Tidal Rewind, however, took me mere seconds to scroll through. There were no fancy animations, no fun facts, and no call to action to share my results. I couldn’t have been happier.
Tidal dials in on what really matters
Your top artists and songs, with no fluff
Tidal Rewind picked out my top songs and albums, favorite genres, the number of streams per month, my listening time, and, of course, my top artist.
Tidal presents this information in a minimalist web page that you scroll down in one go. At the bottom is a link to a Tidal playlist containing all your top songs of the year.
There’s no share button, so I had to do a little bit of screenshot surgery to share it with my friends.
The crucial element was that Tidal didn’t waste any time with silly information like my listening age. Instead, I learned about my most important listening habits without fanfare.
This wasn’t to say it was boring. I was quite confused about why the Halo 2 soundtrack appeared so frequently until I remembered when I accidentally left one track on repeat as background music during a game night with friends.
It wasn’t all perfect; the paragraph summary of my listening habit was probably AI-generated, and it was formatted in a way that made it frustrating to screenshot.
No, I don’t want the junk in Spotify Wrapped, but I would like to share my listening habits without hassle.
I also enjoy how Wrapped plays your favorite songs as you scroll, something that was definitely missing from Tidal Rewind.
Switching music providers halfway through the year also messed with my listening habits, so I wasn’t reading too much into my Tidal Rewind.
Nevertheless, there was plenty there to consider and make me excited for next year.
You don’t miss out by skipping Spotify Wrapped
As I used Spotify for seven months of the year, I took a brief look at my Wrapped after reviewing my Tidal Rewind.
Apart from a completely different set of data, Spotify didn’t provide any more useful insights on top of what Tidal had already told me.
I discovered my listening age (65) and found out my favorite podcast (there was only one to choose from). Apart from this, Spotify just offered the same metrics with flashier animations.
Spotify Wrapped’s viral nature is a fantastic way to retain its customer base.
If you shift away from Spotify in the middle of the year, as I did, you won’t want to share your listening habits, as the truncated data won’t accurately reflect them.
So, as the tracker resets for music, there is no better time to switch from Spotify. Switch now, and you’ll still get your Wrapped, albeit without your listening age.
