Music Update

A quick (hopefully!), navel-gazey post today to share that my initial run through my entire library on Apple Music is finally complete!

After transitioning over from Spotify in April, I spent several weeks attempting to recreate how I organized iTunes over 10 years ago to balance both new and old music in a daily playlist. This makes heavy use of Smart Playlists, which select music based on date added, rating, play count, and other rather granular details.[1]

Once I got that set up, I had roughly 3600 songs in my library with zero plays since the switch. By the end of the summer that number had barely crept under 3000, so I did some tweaking to pull in more unheard tracks. I figured once I had listened to everything once, the true magic of Smart Playlists would take over. After nearly three months of extra attention, I finally cycled through my last of those songs Wednesday night!

Hooray me!

Now I’m sure a few of you might be asking, “How did it take you that long to listen to those songs? I thought you listened to music constantly?”

A good and fair question.

My daily playlist is balanced about 50–50 between songs added in the last 45 days and everything else in my library. I sample a lot of new music each week, taking suggestions from multiple music sites. Not all of those new songs stick, but I do listen to them at least once. That’s anywhere from 20–50 new tracks each week.

I also still use Spotify in my car, as the Tesla app for it is wonky, but not nearly as maddening as their Apple Music app. If I don’t remember to go back and sync what I listened to in the car with my Apple Music library at home, those plays aren’t accounted for.[2]

Finally, my music listening in the house has decreased a bit from where it used to be since I also work through podcasts and listen to The Bridge a little each day.

If I sat at a desk and worked all day like a regular person, and thus was wed to one source of music, I would have gotten through all those songs much quicker.

Anyway, not that any of you will really care, but after seven months of work, I’ve finally finished the first pass through my music library. Just in time to start listening to holiday tunes next week!