- Kyle Chua
Apple Music Now Has the Biggest Catalogue Among Streaming Services With 100 Million Songs
Apple Music now has a record-shattering 100 million songs in its catalogue, a number that’s expected to continue to grow in the coming years.
The streaming service’s global editorial chief Rachel Newman celebrated the milestone on Monday, 3 October, touting how the entire history, present, and future of music is just a few taps or a voice command away. The milestone comes 21 years after the debut of iTunes and the original iPod, going from 1,000 songs in one’s pocket to a whopping 100 million available via streaming.
The figure, which only counts songs and doesn’t include podcasts or other audio content, puts Apple Music at the top when it comes to the biggest catalogue. In comparison, Tidal and KKBox claim to have over 90 million songs, while Spotify claims to have about 80 million.
Ms Newman points out that the library features more music than one can listen to in a lifetime, or perhaps even multiple lifetimes. She adds that it’s “the biggest collection of music, in any format, ever”.
"Today, anywhere in the world, in 167 countries and regions on Apple Music, any artist of any description can write and record a song and release it globally," she said. "Every day, over 20,000 singers and songwriters are delivering new songs to Apple Music – songs that make our catalogue even better than it was the day before."
Apple credits human curation for helping users on the platform discover new music, considering the size of the catalogue. The platform has expert radio hosts that curate songs for different genres and handcrafted playlists to suit varying tastes or moods. What's more, Apple is launching the new Apple Music Today series, where the company will pick a new song every day and dive into its history. This is one way the company thinks it can elevate up-and-coming artists – by providing them with an opportunity to contextualise their music and tell their stories.
"At Apple Music, human curation has always been the core to everything we do, both in ways you can see, like our editorial playlists; and ways you can’t, like the human touch that drives our recommendation algorithms," said Ms Newman.
Apple Music now has a record-shattering 100 million songs in its catalogue, a number that’s expected to continue to grow in the coming years.
The figure, which only counts songs and doesn’t include podcasts or other audio content, puts Apple Music at the top when it comes to the biggest catalogue.
In comparison, Tidal and KKbox claim to have over 90 million songs, while Spotify claims to have about 80 million.
Apple is also launching the new Apple Music Today series, where the company will pick a new song every day and dive into its history.