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And Finally Business News Digital
Apple Music catalogue passes 100 million tracks
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 4 October 2022
Apple has announced that there are now more than 100 million tracks available on the Apple Music streaming service. Which, it says, is “simply the biggest collection of music, in any format, ever”. It’s also… well, it’s too many, isn’t it? We should probably start deleting some.
I don’t think Apple is going to follow that advice, though. If anything, it thinks that there should be even more music available. And therefore it’s super cool that a big old stack of new tracks keeps on appearing each and every day.
“It’s a number that will continue to grow and exponentially multiply”, says Apple Music’s Global Head Of Editorial, Rachel Newman, of the big 100 million stat. “But it’s more than just a number, representing something much more significant – the tectonic shift in the business of music making and distribution over these past two decades”.
“Every day”, she goes on, “over 20,000 singers and songwriters are delivering new songs to Apple Music – songs that make our catalogue even better than it was the day before. One hundred million songs is evidence of a more democratic space, where anyone, even a new artist making music out of their bedroom, can have the next big hit”.
Come on all you bedroom hit-makers! Still, with all this music out there, how can any listener ever possibly hope to navigate it all? How can they ever actually identify the 12,809 tracks that aren’t shit? Aware that people see algorithms – and particularly Spotify algorithms – as the enemy, Apple is keen to point out that it provides a more personal touch in that domain.
“This isn’t just an opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come, but also a moment to look forward to the work we have left to do”, says Newman.
“At Apple Music, human curation has always been the core to everything we do, both in ways you can see, like our editorial playlists; and ways you can’t, like the human touch that drives our recommendation algorithms. Now more than ever, we know that investment in human curation will be key in making us the very best at connecting artists and audiences”.
“We also know that it’s more important than ever that we are elevating artists’ voices and providing opportunities for them to tell their own stories and contextualise their music”, she adds. “It is no longer enough to just connect artists and fans, it’s about making those connections deeper and more meaningful”.
To help with that, Apple Music has announced a new series called ‘Apple Music Today’. “We’ll be picking a new song every day and diving into its history”, explains Newman, “because we know that each of the 100 million songs in our catalogue has its own story”. Yeah, maybe.
So, congratulations to Apple Music on its big bin of music – much bigger than Spotify, which is still going with “over 80 million tracks” on its official blurbs. I mean, technically that could mean 100 million too, I guess. But they don’t say it do they? So “woo” for Apple.
Although, those Apple types probably shouldn’t accidentally take a peak at SoundCloud’s official blurb, it claiming to have 300 million tracks. Because that would really mess with that “simply the biggest collection of music, in any format, ever” claim, wouldn’t it?
Maybe 200 million and one of those tracks on SoundCloud are podcasts, given that these official streaming service stat brags are often a little vague regarding what specific kinds of content and creators are being included in the maths.
This story is discussed on this edition of our Setlist podcast.
