Human curated playlists? I think not!

[MentalFloss]

So everyone, from Eddy Cue to Trent Reznor keeps going on about the human factor in Apple Music and how important human curation is. I doubt though that the following playlist (I got from "For You") has been curated by a human, unless John Williams (the guitarist) is secretely the same person as John Williams (the composer).

To me, this means that "human curation" implies that someone writes the little blurb at the top of the playlist, then presses a button, and a playlist is generated automatically, probably based on iTunes popularity ratings.

 

[etm0001]

To me, this means that "human curation" implies that someone writes the little blurb at the top of the playlist, then presses a button, and a playlist is generated automatically, probably based on iTunes popularity ratings.

Or perhaps someone fat-fingered something during the playlist creation/publishing process? Apple (and Beats formerly) has made a big deal out of "human curated" playlists. To find out that these lists were actually algorithmically generated would create a sh*t storm of negative press for Apple.

 

[MentalFloss]

Yes, it's also possible that someone meticulously collected the best works of John Williams (the guitarist) and then put the playlist into a folder with a lot of other newly created playlists, waiting for someone to create a nice catchy blurb. And that person might have messed things up, writing about Jaws and Indiana Jones without noticing that these movies were not known for their masterful classical guitar soundtracks.

It would still be stupid, but at least not a complete departure from what Apple had advertised so heavily.

 

[etm0001]

I guess for now we can only speculate. I would say that, for the most part, I've been pretty impressed with the curated lists - human or otherwise. As others have noted, I do hope they'll publish longer playlists a la Spotify. I also feel like these curated lists are buried in the app and easy to overlook (at least at first. I couldn't for the life of me find them until I scrolled further down "New").

And I'd love to hear the curated list for John Williams - the composer!

 

[MentalFloss]

And I'd love to hear the curated list for John Williams - the composer!

Yes, that's actually what I was hoping for.

I wonder, there is a "share by email" option for playlists, which creates a link and puts it in an email. Wouldn't it be possible to put these links on a website (assuming they are long-lived and not temporary links)? If so, then it would be easy to create a Wiki where people can add their own playlists and others can pick them up.

 

[Sartre]

The playlists are definitely handpicked. But the blurbs are written by someone else, mainly music journalists. There’s an article about it here. I assume there was just a mix-up in the case of this playlist.

There is an Intro to John Williams the soundtrack composer. Here’s the link (if it works):

Intro to John Williams

 

[kmj2318]

I think people are definitely involved in making the playlists. This is error sort of proves that actually haha