Since its debut in 2015 then called Year in Music, Spotify Wrapped has evolved into a major cultural fixture. What began as a simple summary of listening habits has, over the past decade, become a multicoloured social-media takeover, with users eagerly sharing their “audio auras” and bragging rights as top-percentile fans. These slick visualisations have helped Wrapped go viral year after year, offering a moment of digital nostalgia as listeners revisit the soundtrack of their past twelve months.

Yet beneath the cheerful graphics and self-branding lies a platform increasingly under scrutiny. Spotify’s glossy annual ritual now sits uneasily alongside a wave of criticism.

Earlier this year, Spotify faced significant backlash after running recruitment adverts for ICE, the controversial US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Mental-health professional and author specialising in cults, Steven Hassan, condemned the ads, warning, “ICE isn’t just hiring. It’s recruiting for a vision of America that looks more like a dictatorship than a democracy.”

Have you seen the ICE recruitment ads on Hulu, Spotify, YouTube?

They’re offering big bonuses and targeting young, unemployed people, but this isn’t just a job.

As a cult expert, I’ve seen how dangerous it can be when people join something that seems legitimate, only to find… pic.twitter.com/MOhtpMQW2L

— Steven Hassan, PhD (@CultExpert) October 21, 2025

Further controversy erupted when it was revealed that Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek had led a billion-dollar investment in Helsing, a German defence and AI military technology company, sparking significant backlash. Helsing, the creator of military drone HX-2, uses AI to analyse weapons system data during war to inform real-time military decisions.

The company’s fraught relationship with artist compensation remains a central point of contention. Spotify has long been accused of dismal payouts, a grievance sharpened earlier this year when the company effectively reduced royalties by merging its premium music tier with audiobooks. In protest, several Grammy-nominated songwriters boycotted a Spotify awards event, highlighting what many in the industry view as an ongoing erosion of creative labour.

Meanwhile, the No Music For Genocide movement has urged musicians to block their work in Israel, intensifying the political pressure surrounding Spotify’s global presence.  Artists, ranging from Massive Attack to Fontaines D.C. and Yaeji, publicly criticised the platform.

Adding to its woes, Spotify is now embroiled in high-profile legal battles. A class-action lawsuit alleges that the platform accepted payment for favourable placement on Discovery Mode playlists, an alleged violation of the personalised curation Spotify markets as its core value. Another recent suit accuses the company of hosting billions of fraudulent bot-generated streams that artificially boosted major artists.

As Spotify Wrapped once again floods timelines with bright graphics and self-congratulatory statistics, the contrast between the platform’s celebratory veneer and its accumulating ethical controversies has become impossible to ignore.