When it came to Spotify Wrapped 2025, there was a lot of pressure on the music platform to not repeat last year’s epic flop, but lo and behold, Wrapped 2025 was a success.
This time around, Spotify ditched all the AI-infused features and delivered refreshed versions of classic Wrapped features, as well as a healthy amount of new interactive ones including Clubs and Wrapped Party – but it was the new Listening Age slide that got music fans talking.
Taking the release years of the tracks you listened to the most, Listening Age compares your music taste to other users in your age group and generates a unique age reading. On paper, it’s a fun and insightful new way to look deeper into your music personality, but since Wrapped was released this particular feature has been met with some confusion.
We asked the people
Of all the new features in Spotify Wrapped 2025, Listening Age was met with the most intrigue, but it also sparked debate around how accurate it actually is – mainly from music fans who spent most of the year keeping up with fresh releases, but ended up with a Listening Age of a pensioner.
In the case of my own Wrapped, my top 5 songs were all released in 2024/ 2025, as were my top five albums, but I was given a Listening Age of 66. I thought I was alone, but as more people came forward to share their results I noticed it was more common than I thought, which raised concern over the feature’s accuracy. With that said we conducted a poll of our own, which you can view in our WhatsApp channel.
From our results, most Spotify users received a Listening Age between 20-29, garnering an impressive 190 votes at the time of writing, while the next most common age group was between 30-39. As for users who received an older Listening Age, the reactions have been everything from shock to annoyance, especially when their top songs have been released within the past year or two.
So with that in mind, how is Spotify actually using your listening habits to determine your Listening Age?
Turns out, it’s all hypothetical
Spotify says that Listening Age is based on the ‘reminiscence bump’, a psychological idea that refers to a tendency to feel more connected to music from your younger years – and Spotify starts by examining the release dates of all the songs you listened to over the year.
Then Spotify uses this information to find a five-year span of music that you listened to the most than other users your age, but this is the part where it becomes hypothetical.
Spotify admits that your Listening Age may come with some inaccuracies, as it’s only hypothesizing that your five-year span matches your reminiscence bump, and will assume that you were between the ages of 16-21 at the time when those songs were released.
For me, I apparently listened to more songs from the early 1970s than other 25 year-olds so in Spotify’s eyes, I should be in my mid-60s. But this is where it puzzles me, as there were no songs from the 70s that came up in my ‘Your Top Songs 2025’ playlist. Don’t get me wrong, I have playlists inundated with 20th century icons that I frequent from time to time, but it was new releases that took over my year in music.
Looking back on Wrapped 2025, Listening Age is definitely one of the shining stars and one that – in my eyes – could become a flagship feature in every Wrapped, but there’s still room for Spotify to tinker with the way it gathers your data. That aside, Listening Age is still one of the more interesting features in Wrapped’s recent years – will it appear again in 2026?
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rowan.davies@futurenet.com (Rowan Davies)
