Apple's new 'Find Your Mood' playlists forget what made Apple Music great
There are 5 new personalized playlists.
Playlist lovers rejoice — Apple has just launched five new playlists on Apple Music that are, apparently, going to help you "Find your mood". They're easy enough to find as well, just hop to the 'home' page of Apple Music, and then scroll down until you see the 'Find Your Mood' section.
There you'll find the new continuously playing playlists, each with a mood attached. They are in addition to the existing two playlists, 'Love' and 'Heartbreak'. The new playlists are as follows:
- Feel Good
- Energy
- Relax
- Feeling Blue
- Focus
A further move away from human curation
These playlists are, according to Apple, based on your listening preferences, so you can expect each one to be filled with music befitting the mood that you would actually like. Given that they are in-exhaustive playlists, playing indefinitely until you play something else, it tells me that they are algorithmically driven — seemingly forgetting something that set Apple Music apart from the rest of the music streaming landscape.
One of the best bits of Apple Music are the human-curated playlists. Lists of tracks chosen by real people who love the music that they are putting in the playlists, and not just everyday Joe from down the street who's really into 90s drum & bass. People selected by Apple for their passion and knowledge. I could choose a playlist on Apple Music and know that it was lovingly made by someone like me, so that I could discover new music, or rediscover artists and tracks that I might have forgotten.
In a landscape smothered with artificial intelligences and algorithms telling me what I should and shouldn't listen to, those human-curated playlists made Apple Music feel more analog than its contemporaries. Since its launch, however, there have been more playlists based on algorithms on the app, and these latest five just seem to solidify a more computerized future for Apple Music.
Sure, there are other excellent reasons to choose Apple Music over the competition. Hi-Res lossless playback for less than a Spotify subscription, detailed artist descriptions, and Apple Music Classical included in the entry fee are all great selling points — but I'll still lament every time a computer-created playlist makes its way onto the app.
More from Tom's Guide
- I trialed Apple Music for 3 months — and now I'm going back to Spotify
- Why I Picked Apple Music Over Spotify
- I ditched Spotify for Apple Music for working out
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Tammy and her generous collection of headphones have found a new home — Tom's Guide! After a two-and-a-half-year stint as iMore's resident audiophile, Tammy's reviews and buying guide expertise have more focus than ever on Tom's Guide, helping buyers find the audio gear that works best for them. Tammy has worked with some of the most desirable audio brands on the planet in her time writing about headphones, speakers, and more, bringing a consumer focussed approach to critique and buying advice. Away from her desk, you'll probably find her in the countryside writing (extremely bad) poetry, or putting her screenwriting Masters to good use creating screenplays that'll never see the light of day.