Spotify Wrapped has quite literally mastered the art of turning personal listening habits into a year-end spectacle, but its newest addition has not pleased NASCAR icon Dale Earnhardt Jr. To him, it doesn’t matter if it’s a crowd-pleaser.
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The “Listening Age” feature, designed to compare a user’s musical preferences with those of listeners in similar age brackets, sparked a plethora of jokes, memes, and playful self-reflection across social media. For nearly everyone, it was harmless fun. However, for Dale Jr., it felt more like an unexpected jab.
The feature debuted as part of Spotify Wrapped’s annual personalized recap, which packages a listener’s most-played tracks, artists, and trends. Rather than estimating a real age, it assigns a “listening age” based purely on musical taste.
Spotify’s algorithm analyzes the release years of a user’s most-streamed songs and identifies the dominant five-year window, measuring how “old” or “young” their preferences appear compared to others.
When Spotify pegged Dale Jr.’s listening age at a staggering 85, the veteran NASCAR personality, who’s actually 51 years old, was not amused. Addressing the result on the latest episode of the Bless Your Hardt’ podcast, Dale Jr. made his disbelief clear. “I was like 85 or something… Yeah, it was just old,” he said.
What puzzled him most was the disconnect between the result and his actual playlists. Dale Jr. pointed out that his listening habits lean toward pop punk, referencing bands like The Dangerous Summer. That contrast fueled his confusion.
“I’m listening to pop punk. Dangerous Summer. What is that? What does it do?” he asked.
Earnhardt’s reaction, according to his wife Amy, was immediate and unfiltered, as she recalled him appearing genuinely stunned by the result, saying, “But he was really affected by it. He was shocked and affected,” prompting her to record his response. In her telling, Junior stared at the screen, visibly rattled, muttering a frustrated “gah” as the realization set in.
Ever ready with humor, Junior pivoted quickly. “I found a bug in the software,” he joked. When Amy pressed him on whether he truly did, he doubled down with sharper sarcasm. “Yeah, the age thing. It’s bullsh*t. Nobody gives a sh*t about your Spotify Wrapped,” he fired back, triggering laughter around the room.
If you or a loved one was personally victimized by Spotify Wrapped’s age feature… @DaleJr | @AmyEarnhardt pic.twitter.com/PgDYG5RjEk
— Dirty Mo Media (@DirtyMoMedia) December 19, 2025
Spotify, for its part, says “Listening Age” draws on a psychological phenomenon known as the “reminiscence bump,” which suggests adults over 40 tend to recall and emotionally connect more strongly with experiences from their youth and early adulthood. According to Spotify, many listeners naturally gravitate toward music tied to those formative years.
In practical terms, someone who frequently streams early-2000s tracks might receive a listening age placing them in their early 40s. A listener immersed in 1960s music could see an age estimate ranging between 70 and 80. By that logic, Dale Jr.’s result likely reflects a catalog that stretches further back than he expected, even if the number itself felt like a stretch.
