If you found yourself underwhelmed by your Spotify Wrapped this year, you’re not alone. Spotify Wrapped missing its mark turned the annual tradition of musical introspection (and bragging) looked forward to by mns of users into a critical look at the company’s algorithm, Business Insider reports.

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First off, what is Spotify Wrapped? For those who are unfamiliar with the feature, it’s like a yearbook of music taste. Every December, it shows off users’ top artists, favorite songs, and even how long they’ve spent listening to them. It also gives fun superlatives like the users’ listening personality, age, and what the overall mood of the year was.

Blame it on the AI: 2024’s Wrapped over-relied on AI-generated features, including a bot-hosted podcast and, supposedly, overspecified trending labels, like Pink Pilates Princess Vogue Pop. One Redditor, commenting on the lack of depth, said “This was one of the most boring Spotify Wrapped recaps I’ve been a part of and I’ve been a member since 2017,” mirroring the collective ‘meh’ of many users.

But was it a record-breaking flop? Ironically, Spotify reports that this was the most successful Wrapped yet, with a 26% increase in engagement. However, Glenn Mcdonald — a former Spotify software engineer who worked on Wrapped for years — thinks it’s more than just numbers, “It didn’t connect me to communities or the world, or put my listening in relationship to anything.” Other than that, he also mentioned that the overprioritizing of AI gimmicks and sidelining the features that actually popularized Spotify Wrapped is the problem — along with the fact that Spotify’s numerous layoffs that resulted in a 25% staff reduction could have demotivated many employees to push boundaries creatively.

It was an attempted pivot to AI for Spotify, but as Mcdonald has noted, technology alone cannot replace the human-generated creative elements that makes the feature special. This year’s Wrapped simply replicated a data report, and lacked the quirky features of prior years such as Sound Town, which connects your taste to a city, or Audio Aura, assigning a color to match your personality. While they may be simplistic, it added a layer of personal connection and customization that users largely felt Wrapped lacked this year.

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