And finally Business News Digital
By Andy Malt | Posted on Tuesday, October 4, 2022
Apple has announced that more than 100 million songs are now available on the Apple Music streaming service. Which, he says, is “simply the greatest collection of music, in any format, ever.” It’s also… well, they’re too many, aren’t they? We should probably start deleting some of them.
However, I don’t think Apple will follow this advice. If anything, he thinks there should be even more music available. And so it’s great that a big old pile of new songs keeps popping up every day.
“It’s a number that will continue to grow and multiply exponentially,” says Apple Music’s head of global publishing, Rachel Newman, of the big 100 million statistic. “But it’s more than just a number, it represents something much more significant: the tectonic shift in the business of creating and distributing music over the past two decades.”
“Every day,” he continues, “more than 20,000 singers and songwriters contribute new songs to Apple Music, songs that make our catalog even better than the day before. One hundred million songs are evidence of a more democratic space, where anyone, even a new artist making music from their bedroom, can have the next big hit.”
Come on all bedroom hit makers! Still, with all this music out there, how can any listener expect to navigate through it all? How can they really identify the 12,809 songs that aren’t bullshit? Aware that people see algorithms, and Spotify’s algorithms in particular, as the enemy, Apple wants to point out that it offers a more personal touch in this domain.
“This is not only an opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come, but also a time to look ahead to the work that remains to be done,” says Newman.
“At Apple Music, human curation has always been at the core of everything we do, both visibly, like our editorial playlists; and ways you can’t, like the human touch that powers our recommendation algorithms. Now more than ever, we know that investing in human healing will be key to making us the best at connecting artists and audiences.”
“We also know that it is more important than ever to raise the voice of artists and offer them opportunities to tell their own stories and contextualize their music,” he adds. “It’s no longer enough to connect artists and fans, it’s about making those connections deeper and more meaningful.”
To help with this, Apple Music has announced a new series called “Apple Music Today.” “We will choose a new song every day and delve into its history”, explains Newman, “because we know that each of the 100 million songs in our catalog has its own story”. If possible.
So kudos to Apple Music for its huge music container, much bigger than Spotify, which still has “over 80 million songs” in its official announcements. I mean technically that could also mean 100 million I guess. But they don’t say that, do they? So “woo” for Apple.
Although, these Apple types probably shouldn’t accidentally take a peak at SoundCloud’s official post, as it claims to have 300 million tracks. Because that would really mess with that “simply the greatest collection of music, in any format, ever” claim, wouldn’t it?
Perhaps 200 million and one of those tracks on SoundCloud are podcasts, given that these official statistics from the streaming service tend to be a bit vague about what specific types of content and creators are included in the math.
READ MORE ABOUT: Apple Music