In what has become an annual tradition for millions of Spotify users, Representative Josh Gottheimer, who is running for governor in New Jersey, recently shared his list of top songs for the year.

It was a straight-up anthology of Bruce Springsteen’s greatest hits. But there was one problem, as online sleuths who follow him on social media soon pointed out: It was a fake.

“Thunder Road” was the top song. And no concert set list for the Boss, the New Jersey rock icon, would be complete without “Badlands” and “The Rising,” which rounded out his top five.

A believable collection? Sure. But the font, numerals and spacing were off.

Mr. Gottheimer acknowledged he had created the list after The New Jersey Monitor called attention to the differences with the Wrapped images that are automatically generated by Spotify, a streaming service that reliably generates a cycle of online sharing (and memes) with its year-in-review feature.

But the politician, a Democrat who is part of a crowded field of candidates running to replace the term-limited Gov. Philip D. Murphy, insisted that his Springsteen bona fides were quite legitimate, quoting the lyrics from the musician’s song “Rosalita.”

“To paraphrase the Boss: I wasn’t here for business baby, I was only here for fun,” Mr. Gottheimer wrote Wednesday on X. “So just relax.”

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