I don’t get the whole “Add to library” function of Apple Music or similar streaming platforms. See, I always add things to a playlist. I keep my playlists organized like genres (and also share them publicly). So when I’m adding music to my collection, I never select “Add to library”, it’s always “Add to playlist”.

Adding to library is like throwing clothes in a pile

To me, it makes no sense selecting “add to library”.  Many of you may do this, but here’s the scenario; I hear a song I like, got a chill-out vibe and I select “Add to library” instead of “Add to playlist”.  Later on, I wanna’ listen to that chill-out song again or organize that song into a playlist or something. It was just one song by one artist.

Okay, so how do I find it? Even though I consider myself very discriminating in what music I collect, I have… I don’t know, hundreds of artists in my library and they’re all from music I have organized in playlists. None of it is from any “Add to library”.

Just look at the list of artists that start with “A”, this screen shot doesn’t even show’em all. Now how the ‘freak would I find that new song I added to my library?? Think it’s just a simple matter of clicking on each artist name? This is what the list of songs contained for artists in my playlists look like in library view.

See? Some I only have one song, either because I only liked one song from them (or they only had one song in the musical genres I liked). And the genres listed by the streaming platform are nearly always a joke. For instance, so many songs are labeled rap or hip-hop (which I personally hate) but are actually chill-out, acid jazz, downtempo or trip-hop songs with zero vocals or lyrics in them. So you can’t find them via the library’s genre function.

And think it’s simply a matter of finding the songs recently added the library? Yeah? Check the screen shot of my recently added…

Adding music to a star-like playlist

Now you see the issue? Today I added multiple new artists, and the same for yesterday and so-forth. I added these songs to a special playlist I named “AAAStarred”. I did this because when I hear a song I like and want to check the artist’s stuff out later for something I want to add. Once I’m ready to check out the music I’ve collected, I go into that “AAAStarred” playlist and check out each artist that appears in there. I add music I like to appropriate playlists and then delete the song from the “AAAStarred” playlist once done.

Spotify has this feature built in. This is the same as Spotify, but instead of hitting a “star” button and going into the special “Star” playlist, in Apple Music you hit the “…” button – “Add to playlist” and then your last-added playlist automatically appears for me, “AAAStarred”.

With this system, I can add things I like to the “AAAStarred” playlist and not worry how long ago it was that I added things to it, knowing they’ll always be there. But via the “Add to library” option, I totally can’t do that. I’d be worrying about what songs I added to the playlist to audition later, or what songs were added because I already auditioned them and only heard one song I liked.

Playlists first as they automatically add to your library

I understand some people see the appeal in just listening to music from a certain artist or album. I get that. Some of you might want to listen to Elvis’s rock ‘n’ roll songs but not his gospel songs or other oddities; simply playing all music by Elvis would add everything, or the same could be true playing certain albums. So you want to add just the songs by Elvis you like to your library.

But you can do this with playlists. Simply create a folder in Apple Music called something like “Direct Artists” (yes, Spotify fans, Apple Music can place playlists in folders). Then create a playlist called “Elvis” and dump all the songs you like from him in there.

Now this serves two purposes; it adds Elvis’s music to a playlist that you can easily manage and maintain, even selecting (such as saying “Hey Siri play my Elvis playlist”). But it automatically adds it to your library, so now if you get an itch to just play an album by Elvis, you can use the library’s intended function. And if you find another song by Elvis you like, adding it to the Elvis playlist adds it to your library. And deleting a song from the playlist will delete it from your library (if you select the “remove from library” pop-up).

Are there any reasons to add to library?

If you use Apple Music, are there any reasons I’m not thinking of to use the add to library function over going the playlist route? I don’t think there is. Playlists have never let me down in Spotify and the same’s true for Apple Music.

Later. – MJ