The 2025 edition of Spotify Wrapped arrived earlier this week, and it was impossible to miss. The annual listener recap attracted widespread news coverage that spanned the mainstream press (The New York Times, USA Today), the business press (Fast Company, Forbes), the tech press (Mashable, PC Mag) and local press (Peoria Journal Star, Cincinnati Enquirer). For its part, Spotify announced the launch of Wrapped with a slew of blog posts and a pre-release press conference. Even before that, articles about Wrapped’s launch began appearing in late November by publications eager to tap into listeners’ anticipation.  

Regardless of how Spotify users learned of Wrapped — the media attention, social media chatter or seeing it when they opened their Spotify app on Wednesday (Dec. 3) — they took part in a record-setting launch. Within approximately the first 24 hours, Wrapped drew more than 200 million engaged users, up 19% from the previous year, the company revealed on Thursday (Dec. 4). In 2024, Wrapped needed 62 hours to meet the 200 million user mark. What’s more, the number of times Spotify users shared their Wrapped experiences surpassed 500 million in 24 hours, a 41% increase year over year.  

But what’s most remarkable about Wrapped is its level of prominence in pop culture. To the extent Google search traffic reveals consumer interest, Wrapped appears to be in the same ballpark as some high-profile, closely watched cultural events. Take two of America’s biggest shopping days outside of the Christmas season, Amazon Prime Day and Cyber Monday. Wrapped generated more Google search traffic in the U.S. than Amazon’s Prime Day in 2024 and 2025, and it nearly matched Cyber Monday’s search traffic in 2024, though it slipped further behind the annual online shopping day this year. (The current week’s Google Trends data was preliminary as of Thursday.)

Coachella is another good point of comparison. The Southern California music festival is a cultural event that is closely followed for the desert-friendly fashion donned by attendees as much as the high-profile artists who perform. In 2024, Wrapped had about 50% more search traffic than Coachella, while this year, after the festival drew increased buzz and sold out in hours, the two events had nearly identical peak weekly traffic.

Wrapped was even in the same ballpark as the Met Gala, despite falling short of search traffic for that splashy event. While the fundraiser for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute bested Wrapped by approximately a two-to-one margin in 2024 and 2025, when you consider that the Met Gala has written the book on how to build anticipation and drive consumer interest to a cavalcade of celebrities wearing designer clothing, the fact that Wrapped inspired even half the amount of search traffic is still impressive. Indeed, the Met Gala puts up ridiculous numbers: Within three days, this year’s editions had generated 1.2 billion views across Vogue’s website and YouTube channel.  

Many other major cultural and entertainment events don’t come close to Wrapped: This year, Fashion Week, Art Basel, the Cannes Film Festival and SXSW each generated a small fraction of Wrapped’s U.S. Google search traffic.  

More importantly, Wrapped dominates the annual listener recaps offered by its peers. This year, Wrapped had about four times the U.S. Google search traffic as Apple Music Replay, eight times the traffic of YouTube Recap and more than 80 times the traffic of both Amazon Music’s 2025 Delivered and SoundCloud Playback. Again, these are preliminary numbers, but the gaps between Wrapped and the others were equally wide in 2024.  

Aside from the obvious marketing value associated with intense media coverage, a popular product feature such as Wrapped has meaningful business implications. Notably, it’s a huge success for a business model that demands streaming platforms compete against one another on the strength of their programming and user experience. While video on-demand services have the luxury of competing against one another with exclusive content, diminishing the need to offer a sterling user experience and engagement-inducing features, music streamers — with the exception of SoundCloud, which is heavy with user-generated content — are largely limited to the same music catalog. Whether you’re a fan or detractor of the annual year-end exercise, Wrapped proves that in the music streaming wars, being hyper-focused on product features can give a major leg up on the competition. 

Parmalee earns its fifth No. 1 on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart as “Cowgirl” gallops three spots to the top of the list dated Dec. 13. The song gained by 6% to 27.2 million audience impressions Nov. 28–Dec. 4, according to Luminate.

“Cowgirl” is the lead single from the four-man band’s eighth studio set, Fell in Love With a Cowgirl, released in April. Each of the band’s members — Barry Knox, Josh McSwain, Matt Thomas and Scott Thomas — shares co-writer credit on the song with five others, including longtime collaborator David Fanning, who also co-produced it.

“You’re talking about [trucks] and Levi’s and Bud Light, all the things that are country,” Fanning mused to Billboard of the song earlier this year. “But that’s the thing about country music. That stuff never does get old. It’s just, how are you gonna say it differently?”

By count of Country Airplay No. 1s dating to the band’s debut on the chart dated July 21, 2012, Parmalee ties Lady A for the third-most leaders among groups (of more than two members). Only Old Dominion (seven) and Zac Brown Band (six) have delivered more No. 1s among such acts in that time frame. Eli Young Band (three), The Band Perry, Little Big Town and Rascal Flatts (two each) follow in that stretch.

Parmalee links consecutive Country Airplay No. 1s for a second time, with “Cowgirl” the follow-up to “Gonna Love You,” which topped the Dec. 7, 2024, chart. The band previously ruled with back-to-back singles thanks to “Just the Way,” with Blanco Brown, for a week in March 2021 and “Take My Name” for two frames in June 2022.

The group first led Country Airplay with “Carolina” for a week in December 2013. That song became Parmalee’s second entry, after “Musta Had a Good Time,” which reached No. 38 in October 2012. All 11 of the quartet’s entries on the chart have hit the top 40, with eight reaching the top 10.

All charts dated Dec. 13 will update Tuesday, Dec. 9, on Billboard.com.

Kendrick Lamar‘s GNX could’ve been a lot longer than 12 tracks.

During a recent interview in Variety with Grammy-winning producers Sounwave, Jack Antonoff, and Mustard, it was revealed that the Compton MC recorded “between 80 and 100” songs for the project, according to Sounwave.

“We have such a specific language between us, me and Sounwave,” Antonoff told the outlet. “And then we developed our own thing, the three of us. You have it or you don’t with people. When you have it, it’s really magical; when you don’t, you go home.”

Apparently, Lamar started working on his sixth album right after dropping Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers in 2022. “The beginning of it was throwing paint on the wall,” Sounwave said of their process in the beginning. “And it started to form this massive funky West groove that we love because [Kendrick and I are] from Compton. And in that, I started to realize the people who we should bring in to push it even further, like the Mustards, the Jacks. … I was very fortunate to have these friends who are very talented to push it to the next level.”

When it came to Mustard’s contributions, especially the beat switch on “TV Off,” the producer said that he made sure to send Lamar unique beats and never asked who decided to put two of his instrumentals together. “I knew that I couldn’t send Kendrick normal Mustard beats,” he said. “I was sending all types of s—t, anything that I thought sounded like something that I’ve never made before. That’s what I was going for, because Kendrick is different.” In regards to “TV Off,” he said that he “never asked” about the two seperate beats that were used, but Sounwave disclosed that it was Kendrick’s idea. “I care, but I don’t care. I was just like, that was great,” Mustard added.

They also spoke on how the No. 1 record “Luther” came together with Sounwave referring to the process as “spiritual.”

GNX, “TV Off,” and “Luther” have been nominated for a combined seven Grammys during the upcoming 68th Grammy Awards.

This week, Billboard’s New Music Latin playlist — curated by Billboard Latin and Billboard Español editors — features fresh new music including three new albums: Stendhal by Ozuna & Beéle, La Gran Señora (Banda) by Jenni Rivera and Banda Los Sebastianes’ Rancheras Pa’ La Parranda (En Vivo).

Sixteen years after its debut, Jenni Rivera’s 2009 La Gran Señora album is released in banda music, “where her iconic mariachi hits swap strings for brass and tamborazo-driven banda arrangements” and “the tracks still pack a punch,” according to Billbaord Español’s Isabela Raygoza. Under the creative direction of her son Johnny López, the set also includes previously unreleased audio recorded in 2008, four years before the Diva de la Banda’s passing.

Meanwhile, Ozuna and Beéle have teamed up for their joint album Stendhal, a 14-track production—helmed by Colombian hitmaker Ovy on the Drums and other producers—packed with sensual lyricism and fiery global fusions between Afrobeats, electronic, Latin urban and more. “This project was born from a real connection in the studio,” Ozuna said in a statement. “With Beéle, it was easy to build something different, playing with sounds, roots, and emotions. [The album] is a journey we took together to give people music they can feel.”

Other new releases this week include new music from Juanes and Bomba Estéreo, Julieta Venegas, Greeicy and more. Which release this week do you think is best? Give these new releases a spin and vote for your favorite new Latin music release below.

Editor’s Note: The results of the weekly New Music Latin poll will be posted if the poll generates more than 1,000 votes. This poll closes at 7:30 a.m. ET on Monday, Dec. 8.