Classical Music on Apple Music: What's Wrong and How Apple Can Fix It

[palmerc]

Generally speaking, Apple Music's algorithms seem to be horrible. Creating a station based on an artist just doesn't work. You can create a station, but it pretty much just plays all music. For example, I created a station based on Shinedown. The station played bands like Toby Keith, Jason Aldean, Hand Williams, Jr., some rap bands and a bunch of other music that wasn't even remotely of a similar genre as Shinedown.

Amazon Music does a much better job. If not for the fact that Verizon gives away Apple Music, I would still be paying for Amazon Music.

That sort of thing is domain specific. You'd quickly find places where Apple is better than X. Really, all of this stuff is in its infancy and if you listen to something that doesn't fall into the top-100 you're probably rolling the dice.

I expect each and every one of you to fill out at least one Apple Music Feedback form regarding a specific issue you've encountered. Try to be focused so that it is actionable and not just - this sucks.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/apple-music.html

 

[dfee]

Can we be honest about AM?

Pros:
1) vast library
2) native ui interface on MacOS (not electron)
3) no ads

Cons:
1) recommendations are just awful. ("for you" is then a poor experience)
2) it's all about rap / hip hop. ("browse" is about what dominates ... in LA(?)).
3) "radio" is more of the same re: "browse"

In some cities there are actually good radio stations that play interesting music (KUTX in Austin, for example). I rarely end up discovering something interesting on AM.

 

[az431]

There are more MySpace users than there are listeners of Classical Music.

 

[palmerc]

C
Classic and HomePod, haha - nice try

I do it every day.

 

[dannyyankou]

What bothers me is how "Bollywood" is not available as a genre in Apple music when bollywood releases a tonne of music each year.

It’s not even a genre on the movie store, so I wouldn’t be holding my breath.

 

[tylersdad]

That sort of thing is domain specific. You'd quickly find places where Apple is better than X. Really, all of this stuff is in its infancy and if you listen to something that doesn't fall into the top-100 you're probably rolling the dice.

I'm not referring to another "domain". I'm referring to Apple Music and it is generally very poor. Of course, if you know exactly which songs you want to listen to, you can always make a playlist. But I like creating radio stations out of band so that I can try to discover new music. Amazon Music (and Spotify) both do this quite well.

 

[JackieTreehorn]

If you have to resort to Apple Music to find your favourite classical music, you're not doing it right.

 

[SaxPlayer]

Excellent article with some solid suggestions for how to improve.

I'm exactly the kind of person who suffers from the lack of classical music discovery on Apple Music. I like a wide range of music, but on AM I tend to stick to the 1960's onwards (with a little too much 80's, but everyone listens to the music of their youth). I do like classical, but don't have anywhere near the necessary knowledge to find the kind of music I want to listen to, so I tend to stick to a very narrow choice.

Those saying that classical is a tiny market are deluded. Classical music is absolutely huge and if Apple (or one of the other streaming services) got this right then it would raise the bar for all of them and improve the experience for many subscribers.

Just saying...

 

[Diamond Dog]

Apple Music's curation and suggestions are garbage for anything outside modern hip hop and pop-- because that's where all the money is. Unfortunately.

I thought this was well-known.

 

[arkitect]

If you have to resort to Apple Music to find your favourite classical music, you're not doing it right.

Nothing wrong with that.

Though I use Spotify, my favourite is seeing what's popped up on Friday mornings on my Classical Music New Releases playlist.
[doublepost=1550258787][/doublepost]

Those saying that classical is a tiny market are deluded. Classical music is absolutely huge and if Apple (or one of the other streaming services) got this right then it would raise the bar for all of them and improve the experience for many subscribers.

Just saying...

Definitely agree.

 

[Khedron]

Same problem with Jazz. If I want contemporary (modern) Jazz I have to sift through all the traditional artists from the last 60+ years.

Same could be said for probably many genres in Apple Music. They really need to focus and sort on sub-genres more.

Alternatively why not abandon the artificial "genre" method entirely and come up with a more sophisticated system?
[doublepost=1550259025][/doublepost]BTW same thing for iTunes movies where 95% of "sci-fi" are Marvel comic book movies

 

[subjonas]

I’m not holding my breath. Apple is pretty focused on servicing the mainstream, and the mainstream doesn’t care much about classical music.

 

[arkitect]

And when it comes to the Waldstein I prefer Emil Gilels

But now you see, that's the wonder of classical music… there is a place for Kempff, and Gilels, and Nikolayeva… love 'em all.

 

[andrew12]

How many years until Siri can successfully respond to a request like: "play Wilhelm Kempff's performance of Beethoven's Waldstein sonata"? I'm not holding my breath.

I grew up with the Kempff Beethoven as the “standard”. Then I listened to Barenboim and Gulda and I coundn’t go back... (not to derail the thread)

 

[StevieD100]

There will never be any changes in Apple Music regarding classical music, as Apple truly doesn't care. They just want to sell downloads of the latest pop music, as the fad is always changing. This is very short sighted on Apple's part, as classical music listeners tend to be affluent and collect music. Apple is saved by the fact that most of the other music streaming services have no more idea of how classical music works than Apple. The other problem for Apple Music is the lack of higher resolution files. The main selling point of Apple Music is its convenience if you listen on multiple devices. The search functions in Apple Music are just above worthless.

I have no need to listen to Apple Music of any Genre.
As you say, classical music listeners collect music. I have more than 400 Albums on Vinyl and 500+ CD of Classical and Classic Rock and 1960's Jazz and Blues. With all of that in Digital format why would I need Apple Music?
My iPod stll works perfectly and gives me all the music I require.
Now I must go back to listening to the Beethoven Piano Concerto No 3.

 

[TwoBytes]

Apple pretends it's deeply passionate about music but really it's deeply passionate about sales which is why this won't be fixed and there are non-relevant recommendations that Apple pushes for monetary reasons. Massive library but the motives Apple has is shown through the user experience is the real story.

It's 2019 and you still cannot find your favourite artist and add 3 albums without a zillion clicks. I don't have much hope Apple will fix the classical part if so many basics are missing from Apple Music.

 

[tothemoonsands]

Thank you for this article! I hope it reaches the attention of Apple. I am working through digitalizing my entire CD library into iTunes and it certainly is an annoyance how classical music is treated.

 

[MikeSmoke]

Next thing you know people will insist that Garage Band can record without a constant time signature

 

[zakarhino]

Great article, this is what I love seeing from Mac Rumors

I think if they're going to improve Apple Music for Classical they also need to provide an option to stream in higher quality (lossless, FLAC, etc.). There are a lot of awesome recordings out there that are nerfed by sub 320kpbs bitrate. That's why I got excited when I heard Apple were looking into acquiring Tidal, I had hopes for Tidal music quality on Apple's own service. While they're at it, support for higher quality music files besides m4a and easy access to an intuitive EQ on iPhone would be great.

 

[Suttree]

Classical music??? What year are we living in?

 

[keysofanxiety]

Then comes the problem when you actually have to listen to the music.

To cater to the “all speaker” listeners, all the instruments are heavily compressed so you can hear every instrument as it plays and each instrument shines in the mix. What this unfortunately means is that any semblance of proper dynamic range is completely lost and kills the mood of a lot of pieces.

This isn’t just on the streaming sites — classical radio stations are equally guilty. I understand why they do it and perhaps it’s an unfortunate and necessary side effect, but still, it’s a shame that the closest thing to an analogue sound is so digitally “enhanced”.

 

[Scottsoapbox]

This alone made the article worth the read (great stuff in there!):

As Charles bluntly puts it, "Can you imagine: 'Hey Siri, play the third movement of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 from the album Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major, Op. 26 - Ravel: Piano Concerto in G Major, M.83; Gaspard de la nuit, M. 55 by Martha Argerich, Berlin Philharmonic & Claudio Abbado."

 

[kuwxman]

Honestly, this is a problem across ALL the genres.

 

[zakarhino]

There are more MySpace users than there are listeners of Classical Music.

I think you'd be shocked to find how many people listen to all sorts of classical music (young, old, or somewhere in-between). YouTube is a great example of this. Ordinarily I don't recommend venturing into the comment section but take a look at the comments for a classical recording on YouTube, you'll be surprised at the diversity.

If Apple made an effort to revamp the classical section I think the number of AM classical listeners would go up.

 

[kuwxman]

Generally speaking, Apple Music's algorithms seem to be horrible. Creating a station based on an artist just doesn't work. You can create a station, but it pretty much just plays all music. For example, I created a station based on Shinedown. The station played bands like Toby Keith, Jason Aldean, Hand Williams, Jr., some rap bands and a bunch of other music that wasn't even remotely of a similar genre as Shinedown.

Amazon Music does a much better job. If not for the fact that Verizon gives away Apple Music, I would still be paying for Amazon Music.

Similar experience here...even just today, in fact. I set up a station based on a song by Marshmello. There was music from all kinds of artists in there that don't belong in the 'Dance' genre. For example, the song that was playing when I stopped the station was a Cardi B song. Uhh, what?