Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the Internet's busiest music nerd. And it's that time of year again when I log on to the Internet and I roast your Spotify Wrapped. Oh, man, you guys listen to a bunch of music this year, and now I'm gonna talk about it, because that's what the point of this segment is. Ooh!

Okay. Transition. Here we go. I'm going to start looking at your Spotify wraps that you sent to me and do a little roasty toasty.

"Free me from the prison of having Drake as my number one artist. Every single year I've gotten Wrapped."

Man, I don't know what to do with you at this point. There's nothing I can do to save you. Drake was your number one. But simultaneously in your top songs, you have like that and not like us. My guy, you are confused. What are you doing? Choose which side you want to be on here, though. I get it, I understand even Akademiks has Kendrick as his number two as far as his most listened to artists this year. So, it just is what it is. Drake fans can't stop listening to Kendrick, which is just further proof that every Drake Stan is a closet Kendrick fan, and they're just afraid to live as their true selves out in the open.

All right, moving on next. Oh, we had a Brat Summer, which is cool, so did I. That's nice. But why did you torture yourself with the Kanye and Ty Dolla Sign record? Why? Specifically "Carnival" – that track is awful. Ooh, we got Kendrick Lamar, number one, Charli number two, Zach, Future Lupe Fiasco. You got some variation there. Not my coolest year, unfortunately. Hey, don't beat up on yourself. You're plenty cool. Plus, your coolness has nothing to do with your music taste. Look at me. I'm not cool at all. And I have way better music taste than most people.

All right, moving on from there. Whoa. What's going on here? This is not a Wrapped. What the hell is this? Spotify cruises past quarter of a billion subscribers as it eyes 1.5 billion annual operating profit in 2024. How is that possible? For years and years, Spotify has been like, oh, we can't pay artists more, we can't even turn a profit. But now they're looking at 1.5 billion annual operating profit. That's insane. Maybe they're like, you know, making more money and reporting more profits.

Now that Spotify and streaming is like, pretty much solidified and there's very little artists and labels can do to sort of like, you know, work against their interests as a business model at this point. Yeah, I don't know what's going on, but Spotify, massive soaring profits while paying musicians absolute garbage. Not a good look. And also, again, not a Wrapped.

Okay, here's a Wrapped "I reek this year" with Deftones, Radiohead, Have A Nice Life, JPEGMAFIA, and The Cure. I mean, okay, you smell a little bit like a basement show, but basement shows are fun. Plus 163,000 minutes of music. You've been putting up numbers. That is a lot of listening. That's even more listening than I had through my streaming service of choice.

Whoa. A lot of listening over here, too. With 136,000 minutes of music, Annie says it's worse than last year. Charli xcx, Beach House. Street Sects. Unwound. Deafheaven.

Good hip hop taste over here. We have Rick Ross, Ghostface Killah, Madlib, Westside Gunn, with some Funkadelic in the mix as well. I can't even hate.

We also have the 388,000 minutes of music listened to. That's like so many damn minutes. What are you? What are you doing all day? You need to replace me. Also, number two artists, The Voidz. I would hope not. With that new record. God! Wait, wait. Hold the phone. Your number one song is Human Sadness. Like that ten-minute meditation of a track. You're just listening to that ten-minute song over and over and over and over. You are mad. You are insane. No wonder you have so many minutes logged.

Okay, moving on from there.

What? What? Spotify is full of AI music, and some say it's ruining the platform. Yet despite Spotify being the leader of all of these music streaming platforms, a lot of stuff that gets uploaded and placed on there sort of seems to be just like trash and garbage with little to no moderation or control of the quality, or the source, which definitely calls into question some of the recent stats around like how many independent and DIY artists are on the platform these days? How many of these people are like fake bands? Fake artists? We really don't know at this point. And it's kind of nuts that we don't have more information on this and that there isn't more quality control on the platform when it comes to fake and AI music generally.

Still though...

Oh, okay. More AI trash? Yeah. Apparently Spotify couldn't just do like their normal Wrapped this year. Just about the only thing that the company does well and that people who use it like actually like because yeah, I guess the Wrapped coincided with some kind of, like, crappy, stupid AI-generated podcast that was meant to talk to you about your listening habits throughout the year, which like, why do that? That's so weird. Also, you guys are like investing so much money in podcasts and long-form audio content. Why not pay someone to do that on some level, in some way? You know, get kind of like interesting or creative or, you know, I don't know, share in some of the wealth that you guys are just like, uh, parasitically sucking out of the music industry instead of having AI do it.

Okay. Uh, yeah. Again, fans were not really happy with the Wrapped this year, apparently, because it came late and I guess it came through with less statistics than it did before. Must have been all that extra time they needed to perfect that stupid AI podcast. But moving on from there.

Oh, okay. Another wrapped. Bait used to be believable. That's all I got to say. That's all I'm going to say. I'm going to leave it there.

Okay, okay. Oh holy based. 111,000 minutes logged with Prince at number one. And apparently also this person is in the top .001% of Prince listeners worldwide. That's insane. But, I mean, Prince has a catalog that is worthy of that kind of time and attention, so I don't fault you for it. It's totally understandable.

All right. Next. What do we have? Uh, can I even roast this? I think we just found, like, the coolest person on the internet. We're just jamming D'Angelo and Sneaker Pimps and Stereolab all day. And Blue Lips is like our hip hop album of the year, along with Vince Staples. I most definitely mess with that heavy plus on top of it, we're doing a Replay instead of a Wrapped. I can appreciate that. It's like the slightly less satanic version of the two.

Zach Bryan, Yeat, Kenny Chesney, Future, and Metro Boomin. You're literally the bizarro version of the guy who's like, 'I listen to everything but rap and country.' You're the inverse of that person. That person fears you. You are that person's paralysis demon.

Spotify sued over millions in allegedly unpaid music royalties. That's crazy. Especially considering the narrative we typically hear out of the Spotify camp that, uh oh, hey, you know, if artists aren't happy with their payouts, that's like, you know, probably like the label doing that, you know, they're getting, like, shafted with the money their label owes them. It's not us. We're just the middleman. I thought Spotify was just like, you know, the innocent store existing in between the artist and the label. And, you know, they're not calling balls and strikes. They're not doing anything crazy. They're just like, you know, moving the money around in different directions. But millions of dollars in unpaid royalties, allegedly. Seems kind of messy and doesn't exactly fit with the narrative that Spotify is just a small bean. They wouldn't hurt a fly. They wouldn't steal a dollar. Yeah, that's a bit disappointing and confusing. I hope these millions in unpaid music royalties, I hope – fingers crossed – it's just a mistake. Maybe there's like a couch cushion at Spotify HQ. It's just like sitting under there like, oh, hey, you know, the millions that we found that money, it was, it was just like it was. It was in Daniel Ek's desk. Like an intern put it there for safekeeping. They were supposed to bring it to UMG, but it got lost on the way. And it happens.

All right. We also have another big hip hop aficionado with some stellar highlights throughout the year. ScHoolboy, Kendrick. Maybe Kendrick would be number one if we had more time to digest GNX in 2024. Vince. Future. But again, torturing yourself with the Kanye and Ty Dolla Sign, please. At least you didn't have a Drake diss track in your top five songs. You at least have that going for you.

Basically, trash says Global. You know, look, you may or may not be trash. And if you are, it has little to do with your music taste. But what I will say is that what you are listening to here is definitely exemplary of too much time spent on the internet in 2025, you should make a resolution that you just spend more time logging off, and I promise you, your music taste will most likely diversify a bit more. I am looking forward to the next two 2hollis record though.

What do we have next? We have – ooh, some interesting rock picks. I can rock, but Lemon Twigs shows that I am sensitive, especially if you're playing Everything Harmony. Yeah, that soft rock album of theirs is killer. But really, honestly, the reason I picked this one out was because now, as a result of this Wrapped, I have to go look up whatever the fuck Rickshaw Billie's Burger Patrol is. I must know why somebody would spend thousands and thousands of minutes listening to someone with such a name. It's got to be one of the most unhinged things ever. Especially if you're silly enough to have the Minutemen as your number one artist. I do like a kooky Minutemen jam.

Spotify's CEO says laying off many employees all at once may have been a mistake. When will this end? I just want to react to Wrappeds. So you're telling me Daniel is like screwing over artists and just, like, screwing over the employees at Spotify too? Even when working at Spotify and actually putting your labor toward the exploitation and mistreatment of musicians, even then, you're not even getting a break. Is there anybody this company won't treat like garbage? You know, besides those at the top and like, the shareholders and everything, I guess not.

Okay. I'm really quite embarrassed, says gee, who listens to Queens of the Stone Age, Slipknot, Them Crooked Vultures, Arctic Monkeys, but then also BTS. I think you're just rocking out too much. I think you're just rocking out a little bit too much. And that's the reason you sort of go to that BTS pressure release valve. That's okay though. There's nothing wrong with going crazy with the guitars and then just getting a little bit of pop in there. Whatever your drug of choice on that front is, I totally support it.

We also have Benjamin, who says your top song was "Not Like Us" by Kendrick Lamar. Yeah, unfortunately, man, you were officially on Drake's shit list. You are a fragile opp. Yes, as you say here, you are going to be named in the next lawsuit. Unfortunate. But, um, you know, it just is what it is. I'm praying for you, buddy.

Okay, next we have Fantano going to see this and throw up LMAOOO!

So We Still Don't Trust You we're listening to Drake. And then We Don't Trust You the first one, then GNX, then Might Delete Later, then Honestly, Nevermind.

And then further beyond that, "Out Of My Hands", "Family matters", "Polar Opposites", so on and so forth. Again, pick a side in the beef. Why would you listen to "Family Matters" that many times it's like, not even that good. It's a less good "Euphoria". It's "Euphoria", but with worse rapping, worse points and punches being made, worse production. It's choppier and less consistent. It's just pure mid and honestly "Nevermind" track at seven. Oh you've been going through it this year man.

This is crazy. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek is richer than any musician. Yes, even Taylor Swift. How is that possible? That doesn't even make any sense. After all, how much money could this man be making? I thought Spotify wasn't turning much in the way of any profits for that long. How could this man, as he is telling musicians they can't be paid more and ripping them off on the daily? be richer than Miss Taylor goddamn Swift? Who, I might add, makes quite a bit of her money from touring. Not necessarily streams from Spotify, but yeah, that's that's insane. That's confusing. How could that be?

Key Spotify executives have cashed out more than 1 billion in stock this year, including 283 million for Daniel Ek. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, that pretty much explains it. All these bastards are so deeply invested in the Spotify stock that as the company continues to grow and soar on the market, they don't really need to pull money directly out of the company itself. They just continue to cash in and sell their stock as it balloons and balloons and balloons, which is obviously something that happens due to the hard work and popularity of the musicians who put their work on the platform. And yes, rather than sharing in the wealth along with Spotify employees and the musicians that make Spotify possible, Daniel Ek is just greedily skimming whatever money he can off of the top and putting it in his own pocket while buying very expensive bits of real estate and also investing money in military tech. As we have talked about before on this channel. But yeah, unfortunately, Daniel and the Spotify execs who continue to take money out of musicians' pockets, they're kind of garbage. They're kind of garbage people. They're garbage individuals, really. Just a big f-you to music fans and musicians all around. You hate to see it.

All right. Oh, a couple more Wrappeds.

"I promise my taste isn't this basic. I didn't expect Taylor to take over my life on two platforms."

You know, honestly, I spent a fair amount of time listening to Tortured Poets Department this year, and, uh, you know, look, I'm just glad that I have a Swiftie watching me who doesn't want me to die. Listen to all the Taylor Swift music you want. I've said what I've said about her music. I've said what I said about that album. I have nothing further to say to you other than enjoy what you want to enjoy, as long as you're not going to try to cut my head off.

And we have another rocker. You're like four different people I knew in high school, but rolled up into one person. You've got your prog metal guy, your radio rock guy, your pop punk guy, and you're just doing it all together under one umbrella. I can appreciate it. Shout out to you four guys who I knew.

I think that is going to be it. There you have it. Those are the Spotify Wrappeds that I wanted to roast. Let me know what your top five artists were for the year in the comments down below. I'm sure you will.

Anthony Fantano. Top Five. Spotify Wrapped. Forever.