How do you approach Apple Music?

[Dj64Mk7]

Hey everyone! I want to start the beginning of a (hopefully) wholesome discussion about how we as individual people have our own individual approaches to things. In this case, the 'thing' happens to be Apple Music.

Seeing as Apple Music is a diverse collection of many smaller services wrapped into one, I think there are many approaches that could be taken here.

As an example, I first started using Apple Music as an extension of my existing iTunes Store library, adding random albums and songs from the Apple Music catalog as I saw fit. This quickly turned into a mess, as I had albums, individual songs, videos, etc. just mixed together with no rhyme or reason.

Then came a time a few days ago where I had to reset my entire iCloud Music Library, which is when I started fresh with a new experience. I listened to literally every single playlist that was recommended to me by For You. While this results in a wide variety of music over many genres, it takes a lot of time and effort to curate my library this way.

Here we are now then, when I'm about to reset my iCloud Music Library yet again, to try a new approach and form a new experience. A mix between both approaches I listed above, somewhat like Microsoft's approach to Windows 10 (taking the familiar and integrating it into the new.)

Now that you've read about my triple-play approach, I want to hear what approach individuals here take to the service. Music is a form of art and expression, something truly personal; the approaches discussed here should truly be the same.

 

[manu chao]

As an example, I first started using Apple Music as an extension of my existing iTunes Store library, adding random albums and songs from the Apple Music catalog as I saw fit. This quickly turned into a mess, as I had albums, individual songs, videos, etc. just mixed together with no rhyme or reason.

I have no idea why what you describe would be considered a mess. Are you of the opinion that complete and in-complete albums should not be listed in the same list? And why would that be? Albums always had different lengths and singles existing since the beginning of recorded music.

Then came a time a few days ago where I had to reset my entire iCloud Music Library, which is when I started fresh with a new experience. I listened to literally every single playlist that was recommended to me by For You. While this results in a wide variety of music over many genres, it takes a lot of time and effort to curate my library this way.

Again, I have no idea what you are talking about: a) how is that different to what you did before (did you create an empty iTunes library and started using Apple Music with that as the basis)? b) discovering new music takes time regardless of whether you start with an empty or an already content-rich iTunes library (again how is that different to your first approach)?

Here we are now then, when I'm about to reset my iCloud Music Library yet again, to try a new approach and form a new experience. A mix between both approaches I listed above, somewhat like Microsoft's approach to Windows 10 (taking the familiar and integrating it into the new.)

Since I don't really know what the difference between your first and second approach was, I again have not the slightest idea what your third approach would be.

 

[Dj64Mk7]

I have no idea why what you describe would be considered a mess. Are you of the opinion that complete and in-complete albums should not be listed in the same list? And why would that be? Albums always had different lengths and singles existing since the beginning of recorded music.

Again, I have no idea what you are talking about: a) how is that different to what you did before (did you create an empty iTunes library and started using Apple Music with that as the basis)? b) discovering new music takes time regardless of whether you start with an empty or an already content-rich iTunes library (again how is that different to your first approach)?

Since I don't really know what the difference between your first and second approach was, I again have not the slightest idea what your third approach would be.

For me, it's mentally hard to work with a combination of whole albums, individual songs, and other content added from Apple Music.

Yes, exactly. I reset my iCloud Music Library and started from scratch, using For You suggestions as my sole source of music.

The new approach is a combination of the first two. I'm starting with my iTunes purchases as a base, adding full albums from the Apple Music catalog. I will then use For You and Radio to enable guided, deep discovery, better than anything I've ever done before.

 

[zhenya]

I use iTunes exactly like I always have - my library of owned songs exists there just like it always has, but when I want something new to listen to, which is almost every day as of late, I dive into the For You suggestions, or the Radio. From there, if I find something of interest that I want to listen to more regularly, I add it to my library and make it available offline on my phone. So far so good. If anything it has improved on what Beats was already doing for me before and keeps me fed with a wide variety of new music.

 

[manu chao]

For me, it's mentally hard to work with a combination of whole albums, individual songs, and other content added from Apple Music.

My older music all came from ripping CDs but with a lot of albums I have unchecked several songs, sometimes leaving only one or two songs checked (unchecked songs would be automatically skipped in iTunes and were not synced to my iPhone). With newer music, I often didn't buy the whole album but only a couple of songs. But if I like all or almost all songs, I would also buy the complete album. For some artist I like a lot, I would buy the whole album sight-unseen (ie, not sampling every song before deciding whether to buy it).

Whether I listen to a song on the radio or within a playlist from Apple Music, if I like a song, I buy/add it to my library (after all what is playing on radio is nothing but a playlist as well). And if I liked a song a lot, I would check out the rest of the album it was on. That hasn't changed with Apple Music. What has changed with Apple Music is that it has better playlists and thus I might add a complete playlist in one go and then only delete some songs from it. With radio it was the other way around, I'd add only a couple of songs from a one-hour 'playlist'. Part of it is that adding songs from a radio playlist meant taking every song and search for it in the iTunes Store, where with Apple Music I can easily re-listen to all songs in a playlist easily. But there are also Apple Music playlists where I ended up only adding two or three songs from it.

I take it, that is not how you 'curated' and acquired music before Apple Music.