the curation I've found to be better.
I have a lot of edge-case opinions about this, so bear with me as I go off the deep end.
The problem, to me, with Apple's human curation is that it can't possibly keep up with the swarm, especially for something as dynamic as popular music. So while Apple's curated playlists may be tighter and more on-point than one generated algorithmically, my experience was they were woeful in identifying new movers and sounds.
One example would be how Apple has, over the last few months, started heavily amplifying Charlotte De Witte, the phenom Belgian DJ that essentially re-invented dark techno through her epic, combustive sets that often featured obscure tracks by indie artists working outside the traditional "scene." That's fine (and great) that Apple is giving her such a broad stage, but they're doing so a full decade after she got her start, when she recorded and performed under the pseudonym "Raving George" as a way to avoid being cast aside by the old boy's club that was the DJ scene for many years. They've zeroed in on her as an
individual, while her greatest impact has been to elevate an entire underrepresented genre of dance music and bring it to a wider audience. Spotify's (and YouTube's) algorithms can (and have) recognized this and created connections between what people are listening to that human curators cannot and will not—Spotify brought CdW and a host of other dark techno artists to my attention years before she even had a
proper photo on her artist page in Apple Music.
Even Apple's ability to human-curate individual artists is, at times, suspect: Look at Apple's odd obsession with Billie Eilish. Her and her musician brother are incredibly talented, but her popularity has been on the wane for some time, and she's already actively talking about moving beyond making pop music. Yet here's Apple, on the trailing end, trying to play tastemaker. This strikes me as Apple bending at the knee to the whims of her record company, rather than really thinking about and looking at where the audience that resonated with her music is moving to. It feels like everything that was wrong with Top 40 radio, reinvented for the digital age.
Humans are individual focused. Algorithms can spot and amplify much wider trends. But again, I don't want to over-stress this as some kind of killing blow to the value of Apple Music. Far from it. Not all music moves as quickly as electronic or pop music, not all music listeners value discovery with quite the intensity that I do, and not all human curation is going to be, at a default, incapable of matching the ability of algorithms to draw connections and pull threads. Apple's curation absolutely helps to cut through some of the "chaos" of music's seemingly infinite amounts of choice. But that's why I suggested that the OP take advantage of Apple's unique generosity to sample the service hard to make sure it nails the sort of music they like to listen to.
to inherited audio gear.
