Tag Archives: Apple Music

How Music Got Free

I just re-read Stephen Witt’s How Music Got Free: The End of an Industry, the Turn of the Century, and the Patient Zero of Piracy for my company’s book club, and thought I’d share a playlist I made (Apple Music/Spotify). This list contains songs that were mentioned in the book, along with some singles from albums that were mentioned.

The book was a fun read because the author is just a few years older than me, so his experience of early digital music was similar to my own (although I suspect he was a member of the music piracy leaking “Scene”, while I was not). It’s a cleverly crafted story that follows three separate threads through the ’90s and ’00s: the team who invented the mp3; Doug Morris, who has been an executive at all of the remaining majors; and Donald Glover, a blue-collar worker, who was the source of a staggering amount of leaked music.

One of the most startling observations was that almost all of the music that was leaked during that period came from a very small, elite group. I thought of the peer-to-peer revolution as a crowd-sourced phenomenon, but that wasn’t true. The music that was leaked early was subject to circumstance, the availability of the CDs, and the cunning and whims of a few key people.

As I’ve mentioned in another post, it boggles my mind that content is often restricted, making piracy relevant still. We had a spirited discussion about this during the book club meeting. We all agreed that if only the media we wanted was available and convenient, we’d be happy to pay for it. I think pirates will always exist – there are bragging rights involved, after all –  but services and artists are not as helpless as they think. Taking content down from a streaming service ensures it will show up on The Pirate Bay. Digital distribution agreement terms might not always be ideal, but I think a collaborative approach will get us all further than restricting content.

Our book club also talked a bit about the transition from music ownership to all-access streaming (which was not covered at length in the book, but here is a great article about that shift). When my generation was young, we bought CDs at $17 a pop. We’d have to really think about what we wanted to buy, because it could be a while before we’d saved up enough money for another. When I was in high school, our CD binders always rode shotgun.  Suddenly, everything was available in mp3 form. It was important to amass the best collection of downloads in order to DJ college parties. Now, music is hosted elsewhere, and we don’t own any of it. But, of course, we never really did. We owned physical copies of intangible music. We never held the distribution rights.

Review: Apple Music

I find myself missing that Beats Music more than I’d expected. I liked the look and feel of it. Most everything I searched for was there (with the exception of streaming holdouts like The Beatles). I had a sentimental attachment to Beats after all the work I’d personally done for them.

Because I relied so heavily on Beats Music, I find myself somewhat out of the loop when it comes to other services. As a way to find my new favorite, and educate myself about what’s out there, for the past few months I’ve been checking out other “on-demand” music services.

First up:

Apple Music.

Initial Impressions: Ugh. I don’t understand why I have to download iTunes. A streaming service should require an app download on a mobile device, but it shouldn’t require a desktop download. It’s an outdated approach, and a barrier to entry. Why should I have to download a desktop client in order to get quick access to on-demand music?

From there, I found the Apple Music portion surprisingly difficult to find. It seems like an odd branding decision to keep iTunes and Apple Music somewhat separate, but one has to be accessed through the other. To find Apple Music, I had to click the “For You” tab on iTunes.

Beyond the initial hurdles, setup was relatively straightforward. Weirdly enough, it probably helps in my case that I haven’t been using a lot of Apple products lately. I have an old iPod, but I’ve never had an iPhone or iPad. My desktop computer doesn’t have a lot of music on it. Most of the issues I’ve heard about setting up a new Apple Music account have to do with the match feature, which didn’t apply to me. I wasn’t able to move my (small) music library from Beats to Apple, but that probably had more to do with me using a different last name and email address than anything else.

Search function: One of the things I miss about Beats is that an artist’s page would list albums that were deemed “essentials”, as well as “latest releases”. I think Apple’s search results are a little jumbled, and their search might not be as powerful. For example, while searching for Anthony de Mare’s Liaisons — Re-imagining Sondheim From The Piano, I see the artist Anthony de Mare show up, but I don’t see the album, and I can’t seem to find it while clicking through Anthony de Mare’s page. What makes it weirder is that the album art has been selected for the artist’s art, so it’s probably intended to be available for streaming, but I can’t find it.

Recommendations: Perhaps what interests me most about each service is their ability to recommend music to me. Apple has learned a little more about my tastes since I set it up, but it’s still a little off. My first recommendations were an intro to Spoon playlist (no) and an Alt-Country playlist (after I’d let them know I hate country). Radiohead, Kanye West, and Wilco are a little more attuned to my preferences, but that’s because I selected them from the bubbles when I signed up.

Aesthetics: Apple is nothing if not sleek. The artist’s image is nicely integrated, and all the info I’d want at a glance is there. However, the UX isn’t perfect: I don’t love the way the search results look, especially since it seems to take a while to load. I’m also annoyed by the way the current song is displayed: it shows or scrolls across the top of the window, separated from all the other pertinent info, in a too-small font.

album_page

Playlists: I think Apple brought a lot of the Beats playlists over with them, including the wide array of curators (Downbeat, Pitchfork, etc.; they seem to have lost Naxos, whose witty playlists I miss). I like the “Intro” playlists, and there seems to be a fair amount of activity-based playlists. I spend more time listening to curated playlists than anything else, so the only improvement would be an even greater number of them, and I wish the playlists recommended to me were changed up on a more frequent basis. The other downside is the roundabout access to Playlists. I’m not sure whether this is the best way, but I’ve been accessing them via the “All Genres” pull-down menu on the “New” tab.

Mobile app: I tend to do most of my listening via desktop, so while I’ve heard negative experiences of the Android app, I haven’t encountered many issues during my limited usage of it. However: it’s frustrating that there isn’t an Apple Music app for my Android tablet (running Marshmallow), but there is one for my phone (same OS). Maybe that’s Google’s fault, not Apple’s. The other main issue I have is that it doesn’t have Chromecast support, so I can’t cast it to my TV at home. When it comes to playing music at home, we usually opt for Spotify for that reason.

Summary: Apple’s vast music library and lovingly-curated playlists shine. The UX is decent, but reliance on iTunes is a deal-breaker for me. The lack of an Android tablet app and Chromecast make it even more of a chore to use. I’m looking forward to checking out other services, and will only return to Apple if I find other services’ playlists lacking.

Goodbye, Beats.

As you may have heard by now, Beats Music announced recently that Apple will be closing it down on 11/30. Beats users can transition their accounts to Apple Music.

While we knew this was coming for a while, it’s definitely bittersweet. We’ve put in many long hours with Beats since they were a little startup. Everyone is moving on to other projects, but it’s still a little sad to see the sun set on Beats. It was a good service, and I’m proud of the work we did.

As an homage: a cheesy final playlist. Since you have to be one of the few people still on Beats to see the track listing, I’ll paste it here:

“The Final Countdown” – Europe
“It’s The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” – R.E.M.
“The End Of The World” – Skeeter Davis
“They Can’t Take That Away From Me” – Louis Armstrong & Ella Fitzgerald
“Rainbow Connection” – The Muppets
“A Brand New Me” – Aretha Franklin
“I Will Survive” – Cake
“Phantom Limb” – The Shins
“Skinny Love” – Bon Iver
“Death With Dignity” – Sufjan Stevens
“Outro” – M83
“The Suburbs (Continued)” – Arcade Fire
“Someone Great” – LCD Soundsystem
“Your Silent Face” – New Order
“Once In A Lifetime” – Talking Heads
“Digital Love” – Daft Punk
“If I Should Die Tonight” – Marvin Gaye
“End Of The Road” – Boyz II Men
“Tha Crossroads” – Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
“Cross Road Blues” – Robert Johnson
“The Thrill Is Gone” – B.B. King
“Why Did You Go” – Ray Charles
“Miss You” – Alabama Shakes
“I Can’t Quit You Baby” – Led Zeppelin
“In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed” – The Allman Brothers Band
“Don’t Speak” – No Doubt
“I Will Always Love You” – Whitney Houston
“By Starlight” – The Smashing Pumpkins
“Gone Daddy Gone” – Violent Femmes
“Can’t Do Without You” – Caribou
“Wide Open” – The Chemical Brothers
“The Sound Of Leaving” – Veruca Salt
“Last Goodbye” – Jeff Buckley
“All Over Now” – Washed Out
“Come Down” – Sylvan Esso
“You Are My Face” – Wilco
“Let It Die” – Feist
“The Funeral” – Band Of Horses
“A Dedication” – Washed Out
“End Of The World Party” – Medeski, Martin & Wood
“Stairway To Heaven” – Led Zeppelin
“Afterlife” – Arcade Fire
“Linger” – The Cranberries
“Forgot About Dre (feat. Eminem)” – Dr. Dre
“Tron Legacy (End Titles)” – Daft Punk