My “Favorite” Song (Since 2018)
This post mostly briefly goes over my music listening journey for Apple Music. But just mostly my ‘favorite song’.
Ever since I have switched from Spotify/Google Play Music to Apple Music in 2018, I have never switched back to any other music platform (though occasionally I would listen to some songs on Youtube, or Spotify, but it is negligible compared to how much I use Apple Music for.
Why I Switched
I switched in October 2018, after switching from a Galaxy S6 to an IPhone XS. I figured this would be the time, since I was switching from Spotify and Google Play during the last 3 or so years. Google Play and Spotify sometimes had cool discounts so I used them. I actually purchased some songs on Google Play before using their subscription-based model so I still own some nice songs today (though I have not checked since they have replaced it with Youtube Music fully). However I guess I am not a big fan of their UI.
For Spotify, it was near perfect with their UI/UX, features, and just almost everything.
Except it was hard to upload my own music (like downloaded from Youtube), nor did it have Taylor Swift, Jay Z and some other nice artists on it. Since Taylor Swift is my favorite artist today (and really nice back then too), I decided to switch. Besides, I wanted to go deeper in the Apple Ecosystem since having a Mac and IPhone warranted the music switch.
Apple Music — Meh
Well I can admit that the UI and the smoothness of the overall application cannot even compare with Spotify. Spotify had nicer discovery features for like newer songs and trends, as well as the ~play count popularity for an artist’s songs. While Apple’s seems more MP3-esque, in that it was more simple, with some add-ons (discovery and browse features) glued on top. At the beginning, the Apple Music ecosystem did not seem as seamless and complete compared to Spotify.
The only good bonus in Apple Music was that it was pretty seamless to upload songs from my computer files which was very nice, for some Soundcloud-only or unreleased songs. The ‘Control’ Big Sean track and the unreleased ‘Yandhi’ album are MP3s that I have in mind (that I have been listening to a lot!).
Something cool was also it counted the #plays for each track in the web interface. However, it did not show this in mobile interface. And as far as I can recall from research, I do not think playing songs on the phone would increase the play count on the web interface. This is a bummer compared to Google Play music, which I loved how it tracked the # of plays for both mobile and web plays and showed it in the web interface.
Spotify was also really awesome thanks to its ‘year-end’ thing. Super cool to know and they do some decent analytics and stats displayed on a cool webpage. Apple music does none of that unfortunately. However I discovered recently (not sure how long this has been out for) that there is a ‘top songs by year’ thing in the ‘listen now’ section of the web interface (too lazy to check mobile right now).
Seems like it saves each year and all and says the artist which is cool. I will probably make a more updated post about those playlists above in more detail. Also they made UI changes in 2019 and 2020 which makes it look a lot better. So I’ll give them props for that. Much more enjoyable overall to use.
So yeah, Apple Music is getting better and better but still has ways to go to reach Spotify. But still, I won’t switch out. Got an Apple Watch last year, and Apple Music works great on it (no complaints since WatchOS interface just simple stuff, not really much expectations from me for it).
My Most Played Song
So all those paragraphs written above that is not related to this post’s title. But I guess this section is where I say the most played song on Apple Music (web interface) ever, since I started. It sucks how it does not sync with mobile, since I have listened to much more music on my phone, especially during workouts. Looking at it, I have so many more plays on some songs for Google Play Music, during the year/2 years I have used it. So this is not accurate. But I guess the most song I have played the most on my laptop/iTunes/Apple Music since October 2018 is:
Champions, by Kanye West (with a bunch of other features). This song was released in 2016, coinciding with the Rio Olympics. I discovered this song in 2018, thanks to my friends mentioning it. I listened to it mostly in 2018 and 2019 a lot. It was very hype, and it gave me a lot of energy. It never got old in many situations. It still hypes me up to this day, though I think there are more better songs these days. I probably have not listened to this song a few months. But it’s cool, more things to focus on these days!
So yeah, Champions is my ‘favorite’ song, since late 2018, based off of the number of plays on my laptop through Apple Music!