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Posts tagged with "Apple Music"

Early Impressions of Apple Music from Re/code and Mashable

Apple Music and the Beats 1 radio station launch today in just a few short hours. But Apple yesterday gave Re/code and Mashable an early look at the new service and they’ve just published their first impressions.

Walt Mossberg at Re/code writes:

Apple has built a handsome, robust app and service that goes well beyond just offering a huge catalog of music by providing many ways to discover and group music for a very wide range of tastes and moods.

But it’s also uncharacteristically complicated by Apple standards, with everything from a global terrestrial radio station to numerous suggested playlists for different purposes in different places. And the company offers very little guidance on how to navigate its many features. It will take time to learn it. And that’s not something you’re going to want to do if all you’re looking for is to lean back and listen.

Christina Warren of Mashable also got an advance preview:

It’s hard for me to over-stress how much I like For You. From the very beginning, the recommendations in playlists and albums that the app showed me were dead-on accurate, reflecting my various musical interests.

Straight out, I was given a recommendation of a Taylor Swift love ballad playlist and albums from The Kinks, Sufjan Stevens, Elliot Smith, The Shins, Miguel and Drake. So basically my musical brain.

Jim Dalrymple also got a chance to interview Apple’s Eddy Cue and Jimy Iovine:

Jimmy shocked me a bit when he said, “Radio is massive.” I considered radio to be like magazines—steadily going downhill for the last decade or so. However, Iovine said that 270 million people in America still listen to radio, adding jokingly, “I didn’t think there were that many people that had a radio.”

Cue and Iovine explained that the problem with radio was not the fact that people didn’t like it, but rather that too much advertising and radio station research into what songs were popular was flawed. Songs that weren’t popular right away were pulled, based on research, so you listen to the radio and hear the same songs all the time.

As Cue pointed out, Technology limited the ads, but it also eliminated the DJ, something many people enjoyed.

Update: USA Today also got an early look:

Not all the artists whose music is available for purchase in iTunes are also available for streaming, most notably The Beatles: “There always some folks to come later that we would all like,” Cue says. “Over time I certainly would expect the Beatles to be there.” Of course if you own the Beatles music it can reside next to the on-demand tracks in the library.

The New York Times Profiles Zane Lowe, Details Artist Shows on Beats 1→

In a profile published today, The New York Times’ Ben Sisario has shared some interesting details ahead of the debut of Beats 1 on Apple Music next week, with a focus on Zane Lowe.

Compared with the mild-mannered corporate executives who usually represent Apple in public, Mr. Lowe is a new kind of animal for the company. A motormouth both on and off the air, he is an irrepressible advocate for the music he chooses to promote. And like that of the legendary BBC announcer John Peel before him, his endorsement carries major weight: Among the artists Mr. Lowe got behind early are Adele, Ed Sheeran and the Arctic Monkeys.

Interestingly, artists and other celebrities will have their own shows on Beats 1, including Dr. Dre and Elton John:

“Zane is a genuine enthusiast; this is not a fake thing,” said Mr. John, whose Beats 1 show, “Elton John’s Rocket Hour,” will be an eclectic mix of old songs and new. “He’s a fan, and he’s a fan who’s got the opportunity to make his position in the world work for other people. He genuinely loves music, and that’s my kind of guy.”

And:

To keep Beats 1 sounding fresh around the world, the station will alternate one- and two-hour programming blocks by established broadcasters with those by musicians and celebrities, who will host and plan the shows themselves. Among the names on board: the teen actor Jaden Smith, the alternative singer St. Vincent, Josh Homme of Queens of the Stone Age and the British electronic duo Disclosure.

Between Lowe, Adenuga’s eclectic career, and original shows from a variety of artists, it sure sounds like Apple is willing to experiment with Beats 1.

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Shazam Update Adds Apple Music Support→

I’m excited to start using Apple Music next week, but I was concerned that one of my favorite ways to discover songs I hear around me – Shazam – wouldn’t be ready to support Apple Music at launch. Thankfully, an update released today adds an Apple Music button that, like other streaming integrations before, will let you listen to tagged songs on the new service.

I’ve been preparing for the launch of Apple Music – I deleted Spotify from my iPhone and re-subscribed to Beats Music last night so I can report on the transition – because I’ve been waiting for an Apple music streaming service for a long time, and I want to understand what they’ve built as quickly as possible. The fact that third-party utilities like Shazam and Musixmatch should already work with the updated Music app makes the transition even better.

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Apple Will Pay Rights Holders During Free Trial of Apple Music→

Following yesterday’s blog post by Taylor Swift on the free trial of Apple Music, Apple has announced they’ll pay rights holders on a per-stream basis during the three months of free trial of the service.

Peter Kafka spoke with Eddy Cue on the phone, who told him this is a decision he reached with CEO Tim Cook earlier today after Swift’s Tumblr post. Apple will be paying artists during the free trial at a different rate:

Cue says Apple will pay rights holders for the entire three months of the trial period. It can’t be at the same rate that Apple is paying them after free users become subscribers, since Apple is paying out a percentage of revenues once subscribers start paying. Instead, he says, Apple will pay rights holders on a per-stream basis, which he won’t disclose.

As I argued yesterday:

Apple’s terms for the free trial are controversial and I wonder if they could handle this differently. It’s not like Apple doesn’t have the resources to offer a free trial for users and make it up to artists on their own. I think Swift makes a solid argument here.

Good on Apple for reaching a compromise, even if it took the blog post from an influential artist to make this change. Due to the way the music industry is structured, Apple won’t be paying artists directly – but it’s still something and it doesn’t mean free music will be given away by Apple for three months just to promote usage of their service.

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Taylor Swift Criticizes Apple Music for Lack of Artist Compensation in Free Trial Period→

Taylor Swift, writing on her personal blog, criticizes Apple for lacking any sort of artist compensation during the three-month free trial period of Apple Music:

These are not the complaints of a spoiled, petulant child. These are the echoed sentiments of every artist, writer and producer in my social circles who are afraid to speak up publicly because we admire and respect Apple so much. We simply do not respect this particular call.

I realize that Apple is working towards a goal of paid streaming. I think that is beautiful progress. We know how astronomically successful Apple has been and we know that this incredible company has the money to pay artists, writers and producers for the 3 month trial period… even if it is free for the fans trying it out.

This is not the first time Swift has criticized music streaming services with free trials that can’t pay artists enough (or at all). Notably, her latest album, 1989, is only available for digital purchase and has been withdrawn from streaming services – the same will be the case with Apple Music.

Here’s what Swift wrote in an article for the Wall Street Journal last year:

There are many (many) people who predict the downfall of music sales and the irrelevancy of the album as an economic entity. I am not one of them. In my opinion, the value of an album is, and will continue to be, based on the amount of heart and soul an artist has bled into a body of work, and the financial value that artists (and their labels) place on their music when it goes out into the marketplace. Piracy, file sharing and streaming have shrunk the numbers of paid album sales drastically, and every artist has handled this blow differently.

In a media industry increasingly driven towards free downloads and monetization through other channels, I find Swift’s overall position both sensible and a little too optimistic.

Apple’s terms for the free trial are controversial and I wonder if they could handle this differently. It’s not like Apple doesn’t have the resources to offer a free trial for users and make it up to artists on their own. I think Swift makes a solid argument here.

But I want to touch on the bigger theme as well. Swift is also hoping that an entire generation now accustomed to free YouTube videos and ad-supported streaming will somehow rediscover the lost value of the digital album. Nostalgia can be a powerful selling factor, but, in this case, I’d tend to believe that convenience of free services (or very cheap ones) is a stronger motivation for millions of people.

It sounds sad, but, for many, music has become an easily accessible good with no exclusive value – the money is in concerts and merchandising (basically, emotions and memories that are personal, not online). Ask Nickelback (seriously, read their story). The over 8 million global copies sold by 1989 are sadly an exception these days, and most artists are now rethinking what it means to monetize music at scale. Often, this includes using streaming services and social media to find and nurture future concert-goers.

When even Apple is willing to cannibalize traditional album sales with a cheap streaming service that has a feature to connect artists with fan, you have to wonder if the money really is elsewhere at this point.

If only there could be live shows for app developers too.

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Julie Adenuga, Apple’s New DJ→

I’m fascinated by Apple’s choice to pick Julie Adenuga as the DJ for Beats 1 in London. I wasn’t familiar with her work before, but she seems exactly like the type of music expert and entertainer that could make Beats 1 an important part of Apple Music. The Fader profile on her contains a lot of interesting details:

Adenuga’s radio career began at Rinse FM in 2010, shortly before the UK pirate station got its official FM status. Along with her BFF Sian Anderson—now a BBC Radio 1Xtra DJ—she took a gamble on asking the station managers for a show, despite having zero experience. “We didn’t have a clue what we were doing,” Adenuga remembered in her official Rinse bio a couple of years ago. The pair went in to record their first show armed with nothing but great taste in music and a willingness to chat for hours. A producer showed them how to operate a CDJ on the fly, because they couldn’t mix; “we’d just stop and start tunes. We had no DJ experience, but we just played the music and were talking rubbish. It worked. Luckily.” Bringing the rare combination of fire music selections and a banging sense of humour to the station, Adenuga and Anderson hosted a show called Mewzik Box from 2010 - 2011, taking a weekly 11am - 1pm slot.

Noisey has also a good article on Adenuga’s career.

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Apple Music Overview

At today’s WWDC 2015 Keynote Address, Apple announced its new Apple Music service which will launch later this month on June 30. Apple Music was introduced in a similar way to the iPhone and Apple Watch, with Jimmy Iovine and Eddy Cue talking on stage about how Apple Music is really three core products:

  1. A Revolutionary Music Service
  2. A 24/7 Global Radio Station
  3. Connecting Fans with Artists

Apple Music was first introduced on stage by Jimmy Iovine who described the product as “one complete thought about music” and talking about how Apple Music is “All the ways you love music. All in one place”.

“We love music, and the new Apple Music service puts an incredible experience at every fan’s fingertips,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “All the ways people love enjoying music come together in one app — a revolutionary streaming service, live worldwide radio and an exciting way for fans to connect with artists.”

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