Music discovery is the primary reason that I've moved away from Apple Music. It's become difficult to explore their music catalog, almost as if it's by design. I've made the move to Spotify and it's been wonderful.
Lately I've been using https://www.jqbx.fm . Which is a more a turntable.fm approach but hooks into your Spotify account so you can save things for later and DJ from your existing playlists. Definitely helped me discover a lot of new stuff I wouldn't have found otherwise.
My theory is that they have a few people manually curate a list with good songs for a while to train an AI, but when they finally turn control over to the AI it falls on its face and starts adding shitty cover band music to the list.
The Sound of Classic French Pop – A sampling of music that defines the genre
The Pulse of Classic French Pop – Music that is often played by people who listen to lots of Classic French Pop
The Edge of Classic French Pop – New or obscure music recommended for people who like Classic French Pop
It's an incredibly deep web of playlists and music recommendations that has completely changed the way I experience Spotify. Highly highly recommend.
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Thanks parent!
Thanks.
A curated playlist (not discover weekly or release radar for example) is editorially curated and driven by a human. Doesn't involve an AI for now.
a) Pick an artist and listen to "<Artist> Radio", which will quickly compile a playlist of music by and similar to that artist.
b) Sample some "Stations", which are usually themed around a genre, mood, or activity.
As I'm listening to the above, I'll Thumbs Up songs I like, which adds them to my library for more frequent listening later, and helps me to "bookmark" a new artist to browse the rest of their songs later if I want.
Instead, I have to right-click a song and choose "play a radio-station-thingy based on this song" (which usually is a stretch anyway and most of them are nothing like what I'm looking for), and for the few songs I do want to keep, I have to right-click them, find the "add to playlist menu", find the submenu item for the right playlist and click that, and try to re-find my place again in the song queue to start this all over again with the next song.
Maybe it's because I'm used to 90s software still and so I just don't know where the right buttons are, and I'm just clicking the wrong things, who knows.
Beyond Discovery being objectively better on Spotify, curating new playlists from discovered music is a breeze. My discovery of new artists is a primary reason for my use of these services anyway, and I suppose it's possible that simply isn't something Apple prioritizes.
I have some live recordings for example, how do I get them in my library so that they are available on Computer #1, Mobile Device, and Computer #2 always and forever (a la iTunes Match and now Apple Music).
The Google Music Manager can be set to monitor your download directories and uploads any new music to Google Music automatically (even if they are ZIPed).
The mobile app is pretty slick too: syncs automatically, and has a 'store music locally' option for when you don't have a good connection.
The process of adding and synchronizing your local music is not the easiest and most intuitive, but it's possible.