Apple Music: AI Playlists Struggle to Win Over Music Lovers

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Key Takeaways

1Apple Music is testing an AI feature, Playlist Playground, to create playlists from text prompts, but the results are disappointing.

2In a test with the prompt "atmospheric instrumental black metal for writing," Apple Music suggested inappropriate tracks, unlike YouTube Music.

3The feature struggles to understand music genres, as shown by a playlist of "modern hip hop for kids" that included unsuitable titles.

💡Why it matters — Apple Music's inability to generate accurate playlists could impact its competitiveness against services like YouTube Music.

A Disappointing Experience

Apple Music recently launched a beta feature called Playlist Playground. This innovation promises to generate music playlists based on text prompts provided by the user. However, despite the appeal of this technology, initial trials reveal significant shortcomings in understanding music genres, eras, and other crucial elements for creating relevant playlists.

Unconvincing Results

During a test, I asked Apple Music to create a playlist with the prompt: "atmospheric instrumental black metal for writing." The result was baffling: the playlist contained three metal tracks with vocals, a field recording, a piece of ambient electronic music, and a doom jazz track. In comparison, YouTube Music's AI playlist generator showed much better accuracy with the same prompt, only offering a song with lyrics as the fifth track.

Limited Genre Understanding

Exploring the metal genre, I made a request for a playlist titled "modern ambient black metal from the Southern United States." Apple Music could only gather three tracks that matched this description, one of which was by the band Woman is the Earth, hailing from South Dakota. While American geography can sometimes be confusing, it is clear that South Dakota is not part of the Southern United States.

Inappropriate Choices

To evaluate Apple’s ability to handle more accessible genres, I requested a playlist of "modern hip hop suitable for children." The first track was the censored version of "DNA" by Kendrick Lamar, followed by the censored version of "We’re Unified" by Kid Capri, released in 1998. Out of the 16 tracks in the playlist, six were over 15 years old and three were over 25 years old, demonstrating a poor understanding of modern children's music expectations.

Lack of Relevance

The main issue lies in the inclusion of "ABC" by Chicken P, whose lyrics are not suitable for young children. This lack of discernment is even more frustrating when considering the availability of appropriate soundtracks such as those from Spider-Verse, the EP The Grinch by Tyler the Creator, and the works of Aesop Rock.

Poor Understanding of Prompts

I then tested the prompt "dance punk influenced by industrial," specifically thinking of bands like Model/Actriz and Special Interest. None of these bands appeared in the generated playlist. Instead, I received tracks from old-school industrial acts such as Cabaret Voltaire, Einstürzende Neubauten, Ministry, Front 242, and Nine Inch Nails, along with "Blue Monday" by New Order.

Conclusion

Although Playlist Playground is still in beta, it seems clear that it is not ready for public deployment. Even when the results are not completely off-base, they often lack originality and are limited to already well-known artists. Apple did not respond to a request for comment regarding these disappointing results.

A Final Test

To conclude, I requested a playlist for "picking up the kids on a cool day without children's music." The result could have been the soundtrack of Garden State, but at least I didn’t have to endure any tracks by Parry Gripp.