Apple Music Sucks Too 

I've noticed youtube changed their algorithm to fit artist that are not mainstream. I now get recommended random artist I've never heard that are sitting at 300 views and that's something I want to see more in other streaming services

major label privilege is alive and well on apple music. all playlists are controlled by labels. label artists get to use videos on their profile landing page, while independents are stuck with static images. labels get featured albums, AND they get to CHOOSE who is in their similar artists section. I wrote an email to apple support about it and they told me its done by a "secure" algorithm, which is a lie because if you look at any major artist, its clearly curated. oh, and don't get me started on the bio section - labels get an official looking write up space, while independent artists get a "in the artists words...." for a company that boasts inclusivity, apple music is the epitome of discrimination Edit: i almost forgot! Animated cover art for major label artists ONLY! its time to fix this

i wish bandcamp was still independent.

Apple Music’s recommendations are so bad, they never recommend me something I don’t already listen to or something I know and don’t like. I literally never found an artist or even a song through Apple Music

Apologies for the long comment but as a working recording and mix engineer, id like to share my thoughts. Make no mistake, this is VERY thinly veiled attempt by the music/recording industry at large to combat the democratization of recorded music. People are able to produce extremely high quality recordings and mixes all on their own nowadays with little intervention needed until the final stages of a mix or master. The technology has come far enough where besides the acoustic properties of a certain room, and the quality of microphone used on the recordings, there is very little that inherently differentiates a home recording vs a major studio production. Tom Scholz of Boston fame proved this back in the mid 70s (when it was infinitely more difficult to do so), and it has been a growing percentage of recorded music that is being maade ever since. The major labels dont like the legitimate competition that is brought about by independent labels and artists that dont have the ability to bet the cost of a small farm on a single album. The democratization of the recording process has thrown a gigantic wrench in their entire business model, because it proves that the labels themselves are no longer needed for art to be publicly distributed. Dolby Atmos (the general consumer "standard") that delivers a Spatial audio experience, is a cool technology and has amazing a broad uses (especially in cinema or home theaters) but requires expensive certifications and speaker arrangements to even mix the audio you are working on. LIke seriously an Atmos compatible speaker system, which is required to be certified, costs bare minimum about 40,000$. As a working recording and mix engineer, how am i going to be able to compete with major label and artist backed and funded studios? Am i meant to push that cost to my client who has even less money than me? This is meant to consolidate the market of "viable recording options" back towards the top of the stack, like how it used to be in the 30s-70s. Also, spatial audio as a consumer "music listening" standard makes very little sense as most people listen through binaural devices or speakers far away from them, and if they are listening its almost always stereo compatible devices. Surround is a VERY low percentage, even 40 years later. The amount of Atmos certified devices that deliver what i can hardly even classify as surround are a dime a dozen. Headphones are even more laughable, since the object based encoding and decoding is supposed to be scalable depending on the orientation of your system, not limited to two drivers or a stereo array of drivers which are separated to accurately produce the full frequency spectrum (devices with this feature are usually high end ear buds). Its like a mono speaker trying to play a stereo mix, you simply will not hear the Side or right channel, only the Mid or left channel. As far as im aware, an ear bud or even an over the ear headphone driver(s) that can accurately produce objects in 3D space and have multiple independent full spectrum sources does not exist. And if it did, i'd imagine the inherent phase issues propagated by the design of such a device would kill the product as a high quality listening device. Atmos mixes already downmix to stereo VERY poorly anyway. Spatial audio reminds me a lot of the quadraphonic systems of old. That standard died due to the same issues that spatial audio now suffers from, lack of support, high cost of entry, and poor compatibility with existing standards. This push the industry is making towards standardization is going to blunder the same way. Stereo for life baby! 2 ears = 2 speakers! 😂

This reminds of a few weeks ago when Twitter announced the Mr beast revenue on a video he uploaded to Twitter. And soon people found out all the extra money he was getting was coming out of what would have been paid out to other people. People who are less famous. Just another case of where corporations will never look out for the smallest people, and even when using the biggest people for promo. It never comes out of the revenue pocket

Spotify and Apple Music suck.I still use my IPod and use RU-vid to mp3 for all my free music

the 80% number also feels disingenuous bc spatial audio is turned on by default. i actually had to go into my settings and disable it bc i was finding that it actually made most of the albums sound worse and the mixing sound super weird and inconsistent. the entire thing reads like apple trying to push spatial audio in any way they can so that ppl get tricked into switching over to apple music bc of it

Imagine if melon got a low taper fade 🤔

The only good thing about Dolby Atmos is the results aren't as compressed and don't clip as much as non-Atmos. I'd much prefer the regular album be produced better than thousands be spent on an Atmos release.

BREAKING NEWS: COMPANY BAD

spacial audio and hi-fi only work if you have the right equipment. I assume 95% of people do not, even if they think they do. And even if they do, they have a high chance of using it wrong

*BREAKING* Every single corporation sucks.

Yeh apple also made it so that you cannot get playlisted unless you have a spatial audio mix. As an audio engineer working with smaller artists no one is focussing on apple right now because it’s not worth it.

a short history lesson. 1965 Dolby noise reduction and its many iterations through the years, makes tape sound better but you need a new tape deck. 1970 quadraphonic sound was a thing. had limited releases. it was complicated. 1980s Dolby ProLogic. Quad surround sound encoded/decoded with special audio equipment. not great sounding. 1990 QSound system 3D audio in stereo. sounded amazing works in stereo. had big releases. this was best system. 1999 DVD-Audio with 5.1 surround sound. sounded good in recording studios, home theaters and car stereos. limited releases. 2024 most people listen to low quality audio formats on a streaming services on earbuds. Atmos is the latest attempt at an audio format fabricated to sell expensive audio gear to both the recording industry and music listeners and pretend it has value inflating the cost of production. The problem was always most people don't care about sound quality or surround sound. it shows when mp3s became the dominant audio format for the last 20+ years. Meanwhile the recording industry has been upgrading to expensive equipment to produce music at higher quality only for it to be played back on a bluetooth speaker. in mono.

It's time for Tidal to shine - so much better ethically!

Love the points you made. Tangentially, I actively dislike when a song in a playlist is Spatial Audio because for some reason they are lower volume than regular songs. So I am constantly adjusting the volume which gets tedious.

Slayyyter released an amazing pop album last year, and no where was promoted on playlists, or main page, etc. This really keeps me guessing how fair is the competition out there and how damaging this can be on a long term as well.

The newest Slauson Malone album is the only one I've heard in spacial audio where I feel like that mix benefited the art!

I think the problem you mentioned naturally existed with or without the spatial audio program. The fact that indie artists who have put huge amount of work on dense layering, production and such already making the cost of their music very high while having less popularity and hence less streams makes it even harder to recoup the cost. What I think makes sense is that artists charge their work differently instead of everything lumped to the same subscription program for the same combined cost. If people are fine with Wagyu beef costing more than McNuggets, they should also be fine with large orchestral arrangement and great mixing/mastering effort costing more than songs from Lil Xan.

If you pirate all your music and just spend the money you would have on streaming on a piece of merch or a live show from an artist, you will support them much better than you ever could by listening to them on streaming.

I‘m using Tidal for half a year now and the audio quality is amazing. I’m surprised that Melon doesn’t use it

I use RU-vid music although the audio quality could be better but, the algorithm is nice. I get recommend more indie artists and bands now more than ever. Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music algorithms just didn’t work for me. Also the Dolby audio sounds like cereal even with fantastic headphones. It’s honestly useless imo.

This is exactly what i've been saying! How else can I stream Hoods Hottest Princess without being interrupted

I miss my Zune and Microsoft Music Service.

Side note: Fantano, it looks like your camera is focusing more on the mic than you. The mic is crispy clear, yet you're a bit blurry. Just thought I'd mention if nobody else has.

I actually find spacial audio quite annoying when im going for a walk and half the music shifts to the right whenever i turn my head

Melon Music > Apple Music

Thanks Anthony I'm now deleting Apple Music. Glad I could finally form an opinion on the platform

Yellow flannel why

Okay, I'm playing this through my phone speakers, and somehow the bit at 2:09 still managed to mess with my ears with how weird it sounded.

I love waiting 10 minutes for a song to play using the browser client.

And to think these are the guys sponsoring the halftime show

Dolby Atmos is pretty great imo but the album needs to be recorded and mixed with that setting in mind. Remixing of older records doesn't seem to work out so well. I'm happy there are some producers out there who are working with or building dedicated Atmos studios, such as Devin Townsend. I wish more artists would embrace the new medium and down-mix to Stereo. The whole Apple bonus for spatial audio artists is ridiculous however. Sure it may cost a little more in bandwidth but 5.1 album mixes have been around for decades, and 24-bit WAV or FLAC albums are already large in size.

Conclusion: Streaming Services are evil and we should return to the phonograph to listen to our music.

Best option is to use Soulseek and iPod then support artists by buying vinyl, merch and going to shows

I recently dropped Apple Music after getting really tired of its recommendation algorithm feeding me a constant steady stream of similar sounding bands with worse songwriting, I tried going back to RU-vid Music or Spotify but can’t stand the social media elements working their way in to both services. The shitty TikTok reels that are now front and centre in RU-vid music are particularly annoying. I miss music being able to form a long term connection with an artists music and for artists to be able to earn a sustainable living. I’ve felt for a long time now like I wasn’t enjoying music as much as I was when I was younger, but I’ve come to realise it’s because streaming has made it feel like disposable content and mindless entertainment that I have on as background noise. I’ve gone back to CDs and getting artist recommendations from friends and I’ve already found it to be a more fulfilling experience spending more time with a single album and enjoying the anticipation of a being able to buy a bands new CD at the end of the week after work.

Audio engineer here. This whole "immersive audio" BS is ruining us too. An immersive studio speaker setup plus compatible converters costs $20k at a minimum (a high end setup can cost upwards of $100k) not to mention an existent control room has to be redesigned to accommodate such a system which also costs a boatload of money. And then there is the other aspect; 99% of people out there have no access to true immersive speaker systems. Apple's Airpod Pros are the cheapest "immersive audio system", but, as you can tell from the fact they are earphones, they aren't a true immersive system. Even consumer speaker systems will be very expensive, so it will mostly be used as a marketing tool for headphones (like 5.1 and 7.1 are at the moment). And the benefit to immersive audio for music still is under debate. Most fellow engineers I've spoken to are mostly underwhelmed.

Dolby Atmos and spatial audio isn't just an apple music/apple thing for only consuming music. My Samsung phone uses Dolby Atmos as the audio driver and everything I listen to sounds way better now that I have headphones that use it. I won't go out of my way to listen to something just because it's mastered for dolby atmos or w/e but it is a nice bonus.

Hot take: From an economic standpoint, intellectual property in regards to music is a classic case of rent seeking via regulatory capture. Early in the history of recorded music, the elevated barriers of dealing with analogue physical recordings helped to ensure that this rent seeking was particularly effective. This began to crumble down when music became digital, and it is especially true now when looking at streaming services. Just like in many other cases regarding rent seeking via regulatory capture, the market tries to correct the distortion, but the correction is never perfect (here, we see some still benefiting from the bubble, it's just now the ones benefitting are those who've created the bypass, i.e. streaming services). It's somewhat analogous to tent cities caused by zoning laws encouraging regulatory capture rent seeking in the housing market. The market eventually provides, it's just that what the market provides is less than ideal due to the fact that there is still the distortion. To put it bluntly: artists aren't being underpaid, they are just now dealing with the fact that artists have historically been overpaid. They are now receiving closer to what they would have made had there not been intellectual property rights in place.

I think from Apple's perspective they want to strongly incentivize artists to join the spatial audio world so the feature is actually valid and substantial to its user base. I was personally pumped when I saw the feature and enjoyed it for a bit. Felt a bit gimmicky and for most rap songs, it seemed to do nothing. Can someone not just short-cut "spatial" audioify their song without actually taking advantage of the technology to gain this 10% pay bump? For example, just expand the bass and that's it. Surprised someone hasn't developed AI to do it, but I suppose the license may get in the way. Either way, most rap albums with spatial seem to have virtually no spatial, I wouldn't imagine that'd require a ton of engineer work. For non-rap and non-EDM genres, I see this being a more valid argument.

THIS JUST IN: FORK FOUND IN THE DISHWASHER. MORE AT 7.

Completely agree with the core concept you are arguing for. But if artist do if fact get more revenue on top of normal amount for having spatial audio songs, it would be interesting to see how much that premium does in fact cover the costs to produce the songs that way. Can't really say the artists are forging over the cost if they are being paid more to do so. And if it catches on with listeners and artisits, the process of producing songs in that manner will eventually come down.

I live in Europe, and I know they are currently looking in to legislation to stop Spotify from anti-competitive practices, since they announced they wouldn't pay out, until you hit a certain number of streams per song. I honestly hope, this sort of thing would be covered as well. It's clear there needs to be pressure from agencies of this size, to have any impact and reigning in these companies, so they don't screw over artists, or at the very least screw over artists an equal amount.

youtube premium will take over spotify in the next 10 years

Unrelated, but I like this new setting a lot more than the old one. The Vinyl in the background is a nice touch

Spatial Audio is a push by Apple for consumers to buy their headphones. All AirPods have “Spatial Audio” as a feature (simulated atmos systems in a stereo pair of headphones) so it’s not surprising that apple want to incentivise it as a main feature of Apple Music

in today's episode of "a company sucks" I'd like to reply with my most heartfelt "no shit"

Speaking as someone who actually has the equipment and knowbow to make it work, spatial audio is a fun gimmick. Sometimes, way less than half the time, it even makes the song sound better rather than just unbalancing all the channels. That's it.

"And yet, for whatever reason, I STILL renounce the radio!" Fantano, probably

wow guys have you noticed that in order to be richer you need to be rich in the first place? almost as if these things happen in a specific system 🤔

I switched to tidal a month ago and im liking it so far. I think ill try to start buying some digital copies of my favourite records for listening on the go (or maybe switch to casette for the vintage appeal) without needing to pay a streamer at all

Surround sound is amazing, with more dynamic range, but if they want to quickly churn out a versions for as many albums and use automatic tools.

0:44 All of the Lights mentioned 🗣🗣🔥🔥

Sinner Get Ready in spatial audio sounds like a nightmare, sign me up

Apparently, some of these spacial audio albums might also have songs that are slightly altered: at least, that's the case with some of Britney's albums. Some songs that had censored lyrics got an explicit version, some got new vocals, and the infamous glitch in Alien got fixed all thanks to the Dolby Atmos versions, so whoever is responsible for them must have access to original stems and has some freedom in changing the song.

Music Artist are the biggest “risk” when it comes to investors. They’ll never get paid well. Which why there’s so many plants rn. They would rather engineer the rise then leave it to the actual artist.

Spacial Audio is wack and lame!! UHD, FLAC and ACC files are much better! As a Hardware, Network and Software Engineer, no steaming platform provides top-notch quality sound in terms of the the kbps! Great sound and quality should be produced, mixed and or engineered at 512 kbps up to 1024 kbps! 320-432 should be the bare minimum in terms on kbps for any track! Anything less is mediocre at best!! Great video, Anthon!!

i've been telling that to everybody for two years, can't believe we're only publicly talking about that today

I doubt spacial audio would even work on most headphones. It's like streaming 4k youtube videos on your phone

Literally every commercial venture sucks in our economy. Where have you been the last entirety of human history.

This is why Apple should give up Apple Music and let Paul and Ringo take control, Because them winning the lawsuit against Apple Corps when they explicitly agreed not to distribute music and then started distributing music is complete and utter BS.

i still remember being excited as a kid buying a cool new song on my ipod touch for 99 cents from itunes those were the days...

Been using iTunes 15 years strong now and don’t intend on stopping. From one time purchases (which I prefer) that stay on your device regardless of internet or data. From what I’ve seen much more variety in underground bands and artists (I might be wrong) and burning CDs to my iTunes and then syncing straight to my iPhone is still a method I really enjoy. I have around 2000 songs across 15 years of iTunes downloads and CDs. (Some CDs I don’t even physically have anymore, but still in my library forever) I know this is all subjective but in my opinion iTunes has been the GOAT for me and it will continue to be.

great point made about how albums concerned with spectral texture, that aim to reward deep listening, will likely be failed by the mismanagement of tech that coild enhance their music the most

I still buy music and store in on my 2014 iPod. I love that thing.

I had a problem where I was trying to listen to an album that was split into two parts. I absolutely adore part 1, and I was looking forward to listening to part 2, but it was not available on Spotify, so I decided to look into it. Sadly, it is country locked on Apple Music so I have to buy the CD to legitimately listen to the album. Why is it that I can listen to part 1 of the album but not part 2? I find it very infuriating that a lot of the music I want to listen to is not available for me on Apple Music. I live in the United States, I didn’t really think I’d have this problem.

6:58 But Anthony, why would these big corporations actually compensate the artists that allow their services to thrive when they can pocket even more fucking money for themselves??!!!!

Bandcamp master ra- oh... wait...

The music quality may suffer but I like how RU-vid music is bundled with premium. As someone who uses RU-vid constantly not having ads is awesome

The f**k am I supposed to do? Pay $20 a month for TIDAL? Buy each individual song? No way. Name a better alternative.

one annoying thing with apple music is music always comes out late. i’m always listening on youtube for new music

I can't believe I just missed that spacial audio joke because I was watching this without headphones

Spatial is a marketing gimmick most of the time. Some nerd is going to tell me it's worth it if you do it right, or that their favorite album sounds great in spatial. Well, nerd, you might be right, but 99% of music mixed in spatial is done incorrectly and it sounds terrible.

Spatial audio in music contexts has failed every single time. This is merely Apple attempting to prevent another failed immersive format.

Spatial Audio is a joke, Dolby Atmos should solely be limited to movies. The spatial mixes are horrible in terms of quality, because most are mixed post release when the original track wasn't made with the format in mind.

Comparing it to spotify it doesn’t suck that bad, but as a Apple Music user, i will lower some of my points for them, thought that were equal all the time knowing some records i personally love (like Human by Death) got Spatial audio recently and its cool to listen in another perspective, but its only making profitable the popular albums that came with that function for that artist But so sad to those indie or DIY artists

So glad I never gave up on CDs.

I still rip CDs and keep my music files, preferably FLAC, on my phone for 90% of what I listen to. I only stream with RU-vid Music because it comes with Premium and that's mostly just for finding new music, not for my actual library. I've got serious issues with the lack of control that comes with streaming, and I'll be caught dead before some company tells me I'm "not allowed" to listen to something.

my favoruite group nct 127 got hidden and blocked on sp0tify, not added to any playlist while doing better than other new releases and the competition. got. a dinner with the ceo. right after, got free premium streams, pushed on all accounts and payola on all their playlists. it's the known kpop group with no actual singers

I have 40K streams on Spotify and have made like $200 lol

I guess but you can also upmix from stereo to Dolby for essentially free. It’s not gonna sound as intentional as a ground up mix but it will sound fine. This is what your surround sound receiver does anyway

Meh. This seems totally secondary to all the other ways artists are getting boned. Ultimately, spatial audio allows Apple Music to differentiate itself from Spotify and draw in more users. Some of those additional users will also listen to non-spatial, indie artists on the platform and those artists will get about triple the money per stream versus what they'd get on Spotify. I mean, it's just the nature of things that more well-resourced artists/labels/people have an edge in any given situation. This is not a feature unique to the music industry, or even capitalism, this is a feature of reality. It's why we call them resources, they let you do more things, more effectively.

the whole concept of spatial audio on streaming is stupid, unless u have a setup designated for it, ur not going to hear spatialization in headphones with speakers 2 cm wide

Still buying CD's, if I can't physical then digital

I mean the 10% increase is a very nice bonus for artists that have projects in Spatial Audio, the cost to actually mix in Spatial Audio is stupendously high. The suite is probably the least expensive-Logic Pro had spatial integrated into their system-but the minimum system for your track to be greenlit for a spatial release is a 7.1.4 Dolby surround sound system with a specially treated room for the mixing. Setting aside the special setup to rig your speakers and subwoofer up to the room, you also need a dedicated speaker drive that’s linked to your computer, which last time I checked ran up to 1,600 dollars. The future for spatial is that more of the newer cars coming out are going to be fitted with a surround system that’s available for atmos listening but at that point the market for people interested in this is so slim that it’s almost discouraging. I’m saying this as a studio engineer studying in college, mainly because I think the format is truly awesome, but the cost to actually produce in this is beyond absurd that it’s most likely gonna take thousands and thousands of dollars to make it seem feesable. The indie artist missing out on this cut is truly what makes this unfair.

me in the last 5, looking in the comments: "It's _spatial_, with a T..." "Why is everyone spelling it with a c, what is this... the Matrix?" "YO, IT'S SPATIAL" "GOL-LY"

Imagine if melon grew his sideburns out 🤔

Thanks for bringing this to our attention fantano. This is the type of video I appreciate most

Damn, Apple not being ethical in business practices? Never saw that one

It's a two-tiered streaming caste system. The major labels have been advocating for their releases to get paid more (and saying it out loud) for a while. Major labels and tech companies trying to foist on listeners a feature that they didn't ask for.

Streaming services have Dolby Atmos, which you can’t purchase tracks with, as far as I’m aware.

I would use Apple Music if they just let you import playlists. It's absolutely stupid they aren't all thinking "well if we want them to switch, they're gonna want to bring their own playlists." Like dude you'd have me on ALL your platforms if that was a thing. Spotify just has me in a chokehold for that reason.

i don’t know about actually posting spatial audio mixes, but within logic pro you can mix and export tracks in spatial audio. still a fairly high barrier to entry but i don’t think you’d be spending 10k on an album if you diy. unless there is a bigger cost to 3rd party distribution companies like distrokid or tunecore

Fun fact: if you listen to 2009 by Mac Miller with spatial audio with good headphones or speakers, you can hear xylophones in the background of the hook 🔥

I use Apple Music cuz it’s lossless and hi res. I never use spatial , it’s overhyped. And I only pay less than US 14 per year in China. So it’s a no brainer.

Apple forcibly turns on spacial audio for me constantly so it's no surprise a large portion if their user base has used the feature, I wonder how many people do it on purpose.

you gotta try the 2023 anohni and the johnsons album in spatial audio. the mix is expertly done. most of the high profile records are just audio files with 'spatial' filter on, though.

Spotify is so annoying. Almost got banned cause i got added to a bot playlist without even knowing. They really dont care

I’m an artist and did an Apple Music home session that they wanted to do it in Spatial Audio. I produced and recorded my two songs and then was told the mixing would cost £3000 (for two songs with less than 10 stems each) so the label wouldn’t be doing it in Spatial Audio anymore. It’s silly