Initial Thoughts on Apple Music Classical micro.gregorypittman.net
@gdp my immediate thought was to wonder how they defined ‘classical’ .. for example film scores by John Williams?
@JohnPhilpin I’m comfortable with that definition. When we teach music appreciation classes, we cast a wide net for those definitions. We use the three major categories of pop, folk, and classical music. Anything not fitting in pop or folk music finds a home under the classical umbrella.
@gdp I’m disappointed to hear that, but not in the least surprised. With jazz, where metadata is concerned, you usually see the same annoying drivel appearing on all the various streaming and download services, which makes me inclined to blame the labels for supplying this garbage in the first place, rather than the streaming services/retailers for failing to correct it.
@gdp where would you put albums like Five Bridges by The Nice, Deep Purple In Concert, a number of Jon Lord’s solo albums, ELP’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, and many others?
@gdp maybe you are too young … they all date back to late 60s early 70s … I will create an albumwhale for you.
@gdp interesting that some are of the albums don’t seem to be available in the original format … some have been redone … others I continue to seek out .. because I am now on a mission … still, your starter for ten …
That said … Lord for example is featured in the new app … just not all of his ‘classical’ work is there.
And Keith Emerson is in there as a composer … but not as a performer … at least on first blush.
@crossingthethreshold Ensemble, conductor, composer, soloist, title of work, title of movement, etc. All of that is important for classical music, and listeners may search for any one of those pieces of information.
@gdp Thank you. I haven’t played with Classical yet, just looked through it. I don’t have sufficient knowledge of classical music to delve that deep, and I thought that that is what Classical was going to enable us to do? I thought that that was one of the reasons that Apple produced the app?
@crossingthethreshold Yes, theoretically, that’s exactly why they developed this app. And you can still do that, but the data is badly entered and there’s no way for listeners to edit it, even locally. You can do that in Apple Music, but not in Apple Music Classical. So you’re stuck with whatever the label gives you and sometimes that’s just not the way it needs to be.
@gdp @crossingthethreshold Oh. Ew. That sounds shit.
Context: they bought a whole other company to make this app, and then lied to its existing customers about when they would have the new app up and running.
@SimonWoods @gdp @crossingthethreshold
It's an app - it will get updated and better.
That said - the opening salvo should have been a lot better.
@JohnPhilpin It's fucking Apple, John. What happened to "we can't ship junk"? Did that die with Steve Jobs?
@SimonWoods I am no expert on Classical Music - but I don’t see it as 'junk' and as novice, I have found it interesting enough to explore.
@gdp references the meta data problem - which is very valid and should be fixed - but the Music app has that problem aswell - as does Spotify.
I don’t know anything about the app they bought, do we know if it is worse than that?
@JohnPhilpin @SimonWoods The Music app actually doesn’t have that problem. It’s not geared for classical music per se, but you can actually edit metadata in the MacOS Music app, and it syncs to your iOS Music app. I would be okay with that if the classical app picked up those changes. But the screenshot I posted shows the problem. Three different visual cues for movements from the same major work. That’s not how that should look.