Apple Music

Just two weeks ago I was ready to cancel my subscription to Apple Music. I’d stumbled across its ‘Composer Essentials’ – a list of 100 composers so significant that they merit their own curated playlists. It includes Bonds, Boyle, Caccini, Dawson, Dett, Perry, Poldowski, Sohy, Strohl and Walker. If those names don’t ring a bell, how about the composers who are missing? Albeniz, C.P.E. Bach, Bellini, Berg, Bizet, Borodin, Chabrier, Kodaly, Martinu, Messiaen, Mussorgsky, Nielsen, Poulenc, Schoenberg, Walton, Weber and Webern. See what I mean? The ‘Essentials’ list is stuffed with DEI hires. Which – an analogy with Cambridge University comes to mind – does no favours to the black and women composers who deservedly feature in it, such as Joplin and Beach.

Apple Music has “quietly” removed two of Kanye West’s playlists from its platform. This news was leaked to the music press quietly, of course, and has (thus far) produced tons of free media impressions for the streamer. The move was presumably a shrewd public relations stunt, or maybe a rogue employee with coding skills. Who knows? But the media framed it as Apple Music taking a stand, quietly, of course, as the streamer repositions itself in the headlines after it announced last week that it was raising subscription prices. “De-platforming” Kanye West is messaging they’d like to piggyback, for obvious reasons, as it appeals to a swath of bored subscribers who could end up tweeting Apple Music for not being on the “right side of history.