6 ms·

Apple can add feature after feature, but if Music continues to split albums without warning, it's close to useless. I can't curate a music library when I can't

Apple can add feature after feature, but if Music continues to split albums without warning, it's close to useless. I can't curate a music library when I can't rely on my music not being jumbled around. Dropping music for licensing issues is one thing, but messing with metadata is beyond frustrating. For arbitrary reasons, Apple Music will: remove songs from albums and re-add them to your library as the "single" or "deluxe" versions; split albums and intersperse tracks between both; and duplicate songs in albums. The albums usually still exist in Apple Music—I just have to go out of my way to remove the mangled music and re-add the album. Problem is, there is no warning or notification it happened. Examples: [1] https://pasteboard.co/K2kdUN3.png https://pasteboard.co/K2kdUN3.png This album is totally messed up. Multiple track 3 with different titles, one unavailable, missing tracks that were re-added to my library as singles. [2] https://pasteboard.co/K2keFBV.png https://pasteboard.co/K2keFBV.png One song pulled out into a greatest hits compilation and duplicated [3] https://pasteboard.co/K2kfc0b.png https://pasteboard.co/K2kfc0b.png All tracks, except 1, removed. The album still exists in Apple Music. [4] https://pasteboard.co/K2kfBTR.png https://pasteboard.co/K2kfBTR.png Originally added the original version of Camp by Childish Gambino to my library—here it's split between deluxe and basic, with tracks arbitrarily mixed between both. [...and many more]

unfamiliar 5y ago
> Apple can add feature after feature, but if Music continues to [random issue most people have never encountered], it's close to useless. I've started to feel like "Apple Music as a music library" was really only intended as a bridge for people like you and me that were reluctant to abandon their obsessively curated their music library for the brave new world of streaming music. After a few years of it my listening habits have changed and I've more or less let go and stopped worrying about the drudgery of maintaining "my library".
- djrogers 5y ago
  100% agree. I still have a curated music library. Somewhere. I’m sure it’s still on that one hard drive. But I’ve not thought twice about it in several years.
- inapis 5y ago
  I abandoned my music library after I went to Apple Music. But 5 years later I'm going back. The licensing issues and split albums OP mentioned have basically annoyed the hell out of me. Quite a lot of old music from my childhood is basically gone for good from Apple Music/Spotify. I have a smart playlist which basically lists all tracks which are no longer available on Apple Music and it has a 7 day playtime. Quite a good chunk of my library is basically greyed out and when these albums return they are basically messed up, if not outright replaced with other versions. The reliability and simplicity of my own music library can't come back soon enough. I'll still keep AM and Spotify for discovering new music though.
  - movedx 5y ago
    > I abandoned my music library after I went to Apple Music. But 5 years later I'm going back. How do you deal with the cost? I pay $18/month for Apple Music (Family) and I can listen to thousands of tracks in a single day if I wanted to. That same experience would cost me thousands of dollars up front to kick start it. This also isn't to mention the fact that not all music is available to buy legally online. Dimmu Borgir, for example, use Nuclear Blast and I struggle to find retailers online that can sell me MP3s outside of iTunes. I don't want to have to deal with (read: rip) CDs and vinyl is a joke at 3x the price (not to mention simply being a dead format.) So how are you going to curate a library, legally, so that the artist is supported, assuming you have at least 20-30 artists you like.
    - dmamills 5y ago
      You consume in a slower manner. You use an example of your ability to stream a thousand tracks in a single day if you wanted to, I don't have the same aspirations, so I'd also not pay thousands of dollars up from to kick start it. To answer your question of how do I curate a library, legally, is just over time. I have a lot of musicians I like, and when I find them, I purchase their music, and I listen to it. I do it less than a thousand times a day however. But I've been at it for thousands of days.
      - movedx 5y ago
- sbaildon 5y ago
  I've certainly grown less particular about maintaining "my library". But when I hit shuffle, encounter a great song, navigate to the album, and find it mangled, it's... frustrating. I wish Apple would provide an API that can upload to iCloud Music Library
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ekingr 5y ago
I agree so much! I switched to Apple Music 2 years ago when my hard drive failed. At the beginning it was alright, very convenient to have (almost) everything available on hand, in the same app as before. But now I can't stand it anymore. I have so many albums that randomly split all the time, version of tracks that change or become unavailable altogether. I'm moving away from streaming and am working on building back my music library (that I will be owning for good).
- sbaildon 5y ago
  What's your plan for streaming? Funkwhale?
  - ekingr 5y ago
    Still not sure. Indeed I have Funkwhale on the radar, but tbh I don't have a strong use case for streaming at home. Was thinking about putting it on my rPi -- but in the end it's even easier to just stream from my iPhone through Bluetooth (or a good old jack). My priority is to build a clean library with beets, transcode it in mp3 and feed it to iTunes, to have it on my iPhone & iPod.
    - hbosch 5y ago
      Honestly, the Plex app is very decent for music libraries these days. Except for oddball VA releases and obscure mixtapes I find Plex to often be terrific at library management.
      - sirn 5y ago
        Second about this. I thought Plex would be overkill at first, but Plex is fantastic for streaming personal music library over internet (especially with Plexamp). One of its best feature IMO is you can make it automatically transcode music to Opus when streaming over cellular or download them locally as-is, saving all headaches of syncing to iDevices.
      - wj 5y ago
deergomoo 5y ago
This bug is so old it predates Apple Music! I was an early iTunes Match subscriber and the same damn thing happened. I believe music is "moved around" on the back end as rights change hands, contracts expire, and new versions of albums become available. Which then just wreaks havoc across your library, as evidently whatever system attempts to keep things in line is pretty awful at it. All it needs is a toggle for "do not replace tracks". I would much rather see a message saying "this track is no longer available" and then make the decision myself than have to spend time unpicking whatever chaos it caused.
cglong 5y ago
I've been thinking about switching away from Spotify specifically for this feature. Thank you for the warning.
gevz 5y ago
I wonder if it is specific to the country. I am accessing the US store and out of all link you posted I have no issues. All EPs and albums are complete and no tracks are missing.
- sbaildon 5y ago
  That's right—in Apple's library they're completely fine. You can add them to your own library and they're fine. Then one day the copies in your library have their metadata messed with and everything is scattered with incorrect tags
blackearl 5y ago
I miss what.cd Despite what anyone thinks about music piracy, what.cd had hands down the best music organization I've ever seen. I wish they had just dropped the torrents and kept the indexing features
- stingraycharles 5y ago
  Yeah good times, I’m nostalgic about managing my own music collection using directory structures, everything consistent and well-organized. Tagging metadata using musicbrainz, listening with foobar2000. Nowadays I’ve been sucked into the Spotify vacuum because of convenience, but I do miss out on more obscure music. And I have no idea how to find that, except from sites like SoundCloud and mixcloud, but their UX is horrible for this purpose.
  - knoebber 5y ago
    Bandcamp is great for this. You can buy albums from indie artists and download in your preferred format, DRM free.
    - joshspankit 5y ago
      Double agree.
    - comprev 5y ago
      In addition to 99% of artits providing the download version when physical media is purchased. I really appreciate the ability to flip between digital and vinyl media when DJing for many tracks.
  - mguerville 5y ago
    I’ve kept my library on an external hard drive and recently abandonned Deezer and Spotify because of the same issues mentioned in this thread. Plex (on a VPS) has been a godsend, and hype machine for discovery is top notch, check it out if you want to find obscure but great music
- bredren 5y ago
aeontech 5y ago
I've definitely seen this happen as well. It's extremely frustrating. Looking at your screenshots, I'm guessing these were all albums that were matched to your existing library? Just curious, looking for them, I see this: [1] seems ok here: https://music.apple.com/us/album/yung-gravity-ep/1500799523 https://music.apple.com/us/album/yung-gravity-ep/1500799523 Is there another version of it on AM? [2] I can't find on Apple Music - I'm guessing it's also an upload from your library? [3] seems ok here: https://music.apple.com/us/album/outrun/1440873249 https://music.apple.com/us/album/outrun/1440873249 [4] Does deluxe version have more or different tracks? I see explicit and normal version, but they seem to have same tracklist? https://music.apple.com/us/album/camp/1450829373 https://music.apple.com/us/album/camp/1450829373
- sbaildon 5y ago
  Nah, these aren't matched albums. They're directly added from Apple Music. And that's the thing, the albums are fine! For [1] and [3], I added the album to my library as you see them in the links you provided. Then one day—poof! Albums are mangled, songs have been pulled out into "singles", or I find a new "compilation/greatest hits" version of the album in my library with a subset of the songs, and another subset in the original. Now I have to find all loose tracks, delete them—if I can find them all—then re-add the complete album. The deluxe version of [4] has an extended track list, but I didn't add that version to my library. Apple Music thought it'd be a great idea to add the deluxe version, and split tracks between both albums so neither version is complete.
movedx 5y ago
How do you deal with the cost of building a library of legal music? I pay $18/month for Apple Music (Family) and I can listen to thousands of tracks in a single day if I wanted to. That same experience would cost me thousands of dollars up front to kick start it. This also isn't to mention the fact that not all music is available to buy legally online. Dimmu Borgir, for example, use Nuclear Blast and I struggle to find retailers online that can sell me MP3s outside of iTunes. I don't want to have to deal with (read: rip) CDs and vinyl is a joke at 3x the price (not to mention simply being a dead format.) So how are you going to curate a library, legally, so that the artist is supported, assuming you have at least 20-30 artists you like.
- joshspankit 5y ago
  Buying direct from the artist can be as low as $1 per album. Buying CDs and records used, then posting (edit: photos/hype about) them on social media is a form of social currency that supports the artist (as well, in some countries there are viable legal arguments for downloading pre-ripped files as a form of media shifting when you own the original, which means minimal hassle for turning a CD in to a FLAC)
  - movedx 5y ago
    > Buying direct from the artist can be as low as $1 per album Not the artists I listen to. They're all signed with big labels, thus you can only buy from that label. > Buying CDs and records used, then posting them on social media is a form of social currency And criminal currency known as Copyright Infringement. I'll pass.
    - joshspankit 5y ago
      (shaking my head and laughing at myself) I edited the post, as I meant promoting the artist by posting photos or why you love the music, and not posting the music itself.
      - movedx 5y ago

unfamiliar 5y ago

> Apple can add feature after feature, but if Music continues to [random issue most people have never encountered], it's close to useless. I've started to feel like "Apple Music as a music library" was really only intended as a bridge for people like you and me that were reluctant to abandon their obsessively curated their music library for the brave new world of streaming music. After a few years of it my listening habits have changed and I've more or less let go and stopped worrying about the drudgery of maintaining "my library".

djrogers 5y ago
100% agree. I still have a curated music library. Somewhere. I’m sure it’s still on that one hard drive. But I’ve not thought twice about it in several years.
inapis 5y ago
I abandoned my music library after I went to Apple Music. But 5 years later I'm going back. The licensing issues and split albums OP mentioned have basically annoyed the hell out of me. Quite a lot of old music from my childhood is basically gone for good from Apple Music/Spotify. I have a smart playlist which basically lists all tracks which are no longer available on Apple Music and it has a 7 day playtime. Quite a good chunk of my library is basically greyed out and when these albums return they are basically messed up, if not outright replaced with other versions. The reliability and simplicity of my own music library can't come back soon enough. I'll still keep AM and Spotify for discovering new music though.
- movedx 5y ago
  > I abandoned my music library after I went to Apple Music. But 5 years later I'm going back. How do you deal with the cost? I pay $18/month for Apple Music (Family) and I can listen to thousands of tracks in a single day if I wanted to. That same experience would cost me thousands of dollars up front to kick start it. This also isn't to mention the fact that not all music is available to buy legally online. Dimmu Borgir, for example, use Nuclear Blast and I struggle to find retailers online that can sell me MP3s outside of iTunes. I don't want to have to deal with (read: rip) CDs and vinyl is a joke at 3x the price (not to mention simply being a dead format.) So how are you going to curate a library, legally, so that the artist is supported, assuming you have at least 20-30 artists you like.
  - dmamills 5y ago
    You consume in a slower manner. You use an example of your ability to stream a thousand tracks in a single day if you wanted to, I don't have the same aspirations, so I'd also not pay thousands of dollars up from to kick start it. To answer your question of how do I curate a library, legally, is just over time. I have a lot of musicians I like, and when I find them, I purchase their music, and I listen to it. I do it less than a thousand times a day however. But I've been at it for thousands of days.
    - movedx 5y ago
sbaildon 5y ago
I've certainly grown less particular about maintaining "my library". But when I hit shuffle, encounter a great song, navigate to the album, and find it mangled, it's... frustrating. I wish Apple would provide an API that can upload to iCloud Music Library
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ekingr 5y ago

I agree so much! I switched to Apple Music 2 years ago when my hard drive failed. At the beginning it was alright, very convenient to have (almost) everything available on hand, in the same app as before. But now I can't stand it anymore. I have so many albums that randomly split all the time, version of tracks that change or become unavailable altogether. I'm moving away from streaming and am working on building back my music library (that I will be owning for good).

sbaildon 5y ago
What's your plan for streaming? Funkwhale?
- ekingr 5y ago
  Still not sure. Indeed I have Funkwhale on the radar, but tbh I don't have a strong use case for streaming at home. Was thinking about putting it on my rPi -- but in the end it's even easier to just stream from my iPhone through Bluetooth (or a good old jack). My priority is to build a clean library with beets, transcode it in mp3 and feed it to iTunes, to have it on my iPhone & iPod.
  - hbosch 5y ago
    Honestly, the Plex app is very decent for music libraries these days. Except for oddball VA releases and obscure mixtapes I find Plex to often be terrific at library management.
    - sirn 5y ago
      Second about this. I thought Plex would be overkill at first, but Plex is fantastic for streaming personal music library over internet (especially with Plexamp). One of its best feature IMO is you can make it automatically transcode music to Opus when streaming over cellular or download them locally as-is, saving all headaches of syncing to iDevices.
    - wj 5y ago

deergomoo 5y ago

This bug is so old it predates Apple Music! I was an early iTunes Match subscriber and the same damn thing happened. I believe music is "moved around" on the back end as rights change hands, contracts expire, and new versions of albums become available. Which then just wreaks havoc across your library, as evidently whatever system attempts to keep things in line is pretty awful at it. All it needs is a toggle for "do not replace tracks". I would much rather see a message saying "this track is no longer available" and then make the decision myself than have to spend time unpicking whatever chaos it caused.

cglong 5y ago

I've been thinking about switching away from Spotify specifically for this feature. Thank you for the warning.

gevz 5y ago

I wonder if it is specific to the country. I am accessing the US store and out of all link you posted I have no issues. All EPs and albums are complete and no tracks are missing.

sbaildon 5y ago
That's right—in Apple's library they're completely fine. You can add them to your own library and they're fine. Then one day the copies in your library have their metadata messed with and everything is scattered with incorrect tags

blackearl 5y ago

I miss what.cd Despite what anyone thinks about music piracy, what.cd had hands down the best music organization I've ever seen. I wish they had just dropped the torrents and kept the indexing features

stingraycharles 5y ago
Yeah good times, I’m nostalgic about managing my own music collection using directory structures, everything consistent and well-organized. Tagging metadata using musicbrainz, listening with foobar2000. Nowadays I’ve been sucked into the Spotify vacuum because of convenience, but I do miss out on more obscure music. And I have no idea how to find that, except from sites like SoundCloud and mixcloud, but their UX is horrible for this purpose.
- knoebber 5y ago
  Bandcamp is great for this. You can buy albums from indie artists and download in your preferred format, DRM free.
  - joshspankit 5y ago
    Double agree.
  - comprev 5y ago
    In addition to 99% of artits providing the download version when physical media is purchased. I really appreciate the ability to flip between digital and vinyl media when DJing for many tracks.
- mguerville 5y ago
  I’ve kept my library on an external hard drive and recently abandonned Deezer and Spotify because of the same issues mentioned in this thread. Plex (on a VPS) has been a godsend, and hype machine for discovery is top notch, check it out if you want to find obscure but great music
bredren 5y ago

aeontech 5y ago

I've definitely seen this happen as well. It's extremely frustrating. Looking at your screenshots, I'm guessing these were all albums that were matched to your existing library? Just curious, looking for them, I see this: [1] seems ok here: https://music.apple.com/us/album/yung-gravity-ep/1500799523 https://music.apple.com/us/album/yung-gravity-ep/1500799523 Is there another version of it on AM? [2] I can't find on Apple Music - I'm guessing it's also an upload from your library? [3] seems ok here: https://music.apple.com/us/album/outrun/1440873249 https://music.apple.com/us/album/outrun/1440873249 [4] Does deluxe version have more or different tracks? I see explicit and normal version, but they seem to have same tracklist? https://music.apple.com/us/album/camp/1450829373 https://music.apple.com/us/album/camp/1450829373

sbaildon 5y ago
Nah, these aren't matched albums. They're directly added from Apple Music. And that's the thing, the albums are fine! For [1] and [3], I added the album to my library as you see them in the links you provided. Then one day—poof! Albums are mangled, songs have been pulled out into "singles", or I find a new "compilation/greatest hits" version of the album in my library with a subset of the songs, and another subset in the original. Now I have to find all loose tracks, delete them—if I can find them all—then re-add the complete album. The deluxe version of [4] has an extended track list, but I didn't add that version to my library. Apple Music thought it'd be a great idea to add the deluxe version, and split tracks between both albums so neither version is complete.

movedx 5y ago

How do you deal with the cost of building a library of legal music? I pay $18/month for Apple Music (Family) and I can listen to thousands of tracks in a single day if I wanted to. That same experience would cost me thousands of dollars up front to kick start it. This also isn't to mention the fact that not all music is available to buy legally online. Dimmu Borgir, for example, use Nuclear Blast and I struggle to find retailers online that can sell me MP3s outside of iTunes. I don't want to have to deal with (read: rip) CDs and vinyl is a joke at 3x the price (not to mention simply being a dead format.) So how are you going to curate a library, legally, so that the artist is supported, assuming you have at least 20-30 artists you like.

joshspankit 5y ago
Buying direct from the artist can be as low as $1 per album. Buying CDs and records used, then posting (edit: photos/hype about) them on social media is a form of social currency that supports the artist (as well, in some countries there are viable legal arguments for downloading pre-ripped files as a form of media shifting when you own the original, which means minimal hassle for turning a CD in to a FLAC)
- movedx 5y ago
  > Buying direct from the artist can be as low as $1 per album Not the artists I listen to. They're all signed with big labels, thus you can only buy from that label. > Buying CDs and records used, then posting them on social media is a form of social currency And criminal currency known as Copyright Infringement. I'll pass.
  - joshspankit 5y ago
    (shaking my head and laughing at myself) I edited the post, as I meant promoting the artist by posting photos or why you love the music, and not posting the music itself.
    - movedx 5y ago