A cultural ritual powered by data
Spotify’s annual Wrapped drop has become less of a product update and more of a cultural moment. With the release of Spotify Wrapped 2025, the platform marks its seventh edition in India, offering a snapshot of how the country listens, obsesses and shares music and podcasts at scale.
But beneath the familiar neon visuals and social-media-ready slides lies a sharper strategy. This year’s Wrapped expands its interactive and analytical layers, pushing users to spend more time inside the app while reinforcing Spotify’s biggest competitive lever in India’s crowded audio market: hyper-personalisation.
As listening fragments across languages, moods, creators and formats, Wrapped is no longer just a year-end summary. It is increasingly a retention engine, a fandom amplifier, and a statement of cultural relevance.
A bigger, bolder Wrapped by design
Spotify has described Wrapped 2025 as “a bigger and bolder Wrapped experience that is more captivating, more layered, and more revealing than ever before.” That positioning is not accidental.
The visual storytelling format remains intact, but users now have greater control over how they experience their data. Listeners can adjust playback speed, revisit specific moments, and replay classic elements like Top Genres, Top Song Quiz, and Top Artist Sprint, which tracks month-by-month shifts in artist rankings.
New analytical additions deepen the sense of comparison and competition. Listening Age benchmarks users’ tastes against others in their age group. Top Albums, introduced for the first time, highlights repeat-worthy records. The Fan Leaderboard ranks listeners globally based on minutes streamed, while a six-club system sorts users into behavioural listening communities.
AI-powered snapshots in the Listening Archive surface standout streaming days, and Wrapped Party, the most gamified addition, lets friends compete live using their own data. It is a clear attempt to extend Wrapped’s viral lifespan beyond individual sharing.
What this really signals is Spotify’s bet that data itself can be entertainment, not just insight.
Familiar dominance, quieter churn beneath the surface
At the top, India’s streaming hierarchy remains largely unchanged. Arijit Singh has retained his position as the country’s most-streamed artist for the seventh consecutive year, followed by Pritam and Shreya Ghoshal.
They are joined in the top ten by A.R. Rahman, Anirudh Ravichander, Sachin-Jigar, Alka Yagnik, Udit Narayan, Tanishk Bagchi, and Masoom Sharma — a list that continues to bridge legacy playback with contemporary film-driven consumption.
The stability at the top masks subtler churn further down, where soundtrack-driven discovery and algorithmic playlists continue to feed long-tail listening.
Romance still rules India’s streaming psyche
If Wrapped 2025 confirms anything decisively, it is India’s enduring fixation with romance.
Raanjhan by Sachet-Parampara from Do Patti emerged as the most-streamed song of the year, crossing 246 million streams. The rest of the top songs list reads like a love-ballad ledger.
Tracks such as Finding Her by Kushagra, Bharath and Saaheal; Saiyaara by Tanishk Bagchi, Faheem Abdullah, Arslan Nizami and Irshad Kamil; Sahiba by Aditya Rikhari; and Ishq by Faheem Abdullah, Rauhan Malik and Amir Ameer dominated repeat listening.
Other high performers included Jo Tum Mere Ho by Anuv Jain; Ishq Hai by Anurag Saikia and Raj Shekhar; Apna Bana Le by Sachin-Jigar and Arijit Singh; Sahiba by Jasleen Royal, Stebin Ben, Priya Saraiya and Aditya Sharma; and Tere Bina by A.R. Rahman with Chinmayi, Murtuza Khan and Qadir Khan.
The pattern is clear: mood-based listening and emotional familiarity continue to outperform novelty.
Albums remain anchored in cinema
Soundtracks once again shaped album consumption. Saiyaara by Tanishk Bagchi topped the album charts, followed by Aashiqui 2 by Mithoon.
The rest of the top ten included Animal by Manan Bhardwaj, Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani by Pritam, Sanam Teri Kasam (OST) by Himesh Reshammiya, Lost;Found by Faheem Abdullah, Ek Villain by Mithoon, P-POP CULTURE and Making Memories by Karan Aujla, and Love Aaj Kal by Pritam.
Despite the rise of independent releases, Bollywood and soundtrack-heavy listening continue to anchor mass streaming behaviour.
Podcasts tilt toward personality and genre loyalty
Podcast consumption in India is consolidating around creator-led formats and genre comfort zones.
Figuring Out with Raj Shamani remained the most-streamed podcast of 2025, followed by The Horror Show by Khooni Monday and The Desi Crime Podcast.
Other top performers included The Ranveer Show हिंदी, The Stories of Mahabharata, The Ranveer Show, Horror Time – Scary Stories in Hindi, SR PAY (True Crime Documentaries), Pretkotha, and Moment of Silence.
According to Spotify, horror, true crime and self-help dominate the charts, fuelled by high-frequency publishing and strong parasocial bonds between hosts and listeners.
Selling Wrapped as culture, not just a feature
This year’s Wrapped push is supported by a promotional campaign that leans hard into pop-cultural memory.
A key film pairs Emraan Hashmi and Raghav Juyal, reviving their chemistry from Aryan Khan’s The Ba***ds of Bollywood. The spot plays out as a knowing, self-aware exchange, full of callbacks, inside jokes and fandom cues.
One standout line, delivered deadpan by Hashmi about half of India’s Gen Z being born to Murder soundtracks has already taken on meme life. The punchline lands when Juyal reveals his top song as Tu Hi Meri Shab Hai, complete with a shirt plastered with Hashmi’s face.
The campaign also includes two films crafted by Kulfi Collective, featuring R. Sarath Kumar, blending Bollywood theatrics, Tamil cinema nostalgia and hyper-local humour.
“Wrapped is a cultural ritual now. So our job was simple, to show up in the most entertaining, culturally relevant way,” said Advait Gupt, co-founder and CEO of Kulfi Collective. “Every bit of it is a love letter to India’s music scene, cinema and internet culture.”
Why Wrapped still matters
Wrapped 2025 makes one thing clear: Spotify is no longer just reflecting listening behaviour. It is actively shaping how users relate to their data, their fandoms and each other.
With features like Fan Leaderboard, Wrapped Party, and album spotlights, the platform is betting on habitual engagement over one-off spikes. In a market increasingly defined by local creators and soundtrack-heavy discovery, Wrapped remains Spotify’s most effective cultural barometer.
More importantly, it shows how user data has moved beyond recommendations. It now informs how the product positions itself in popular culture and how audiences see themselves within it.
