ALEX BUCKNAM
Asst. News Editor
I have the wonderful privilege, as a broke college student, to say that I have both Spotify Premium and Apple Music, thanks to my father, who still pays for my Spotify!
But when it comes to which one I think is better, I would have to hand the trophy to Apple Music.
Before you try to cancel me, let me explain!
I still love Spotify and I consider it my first love. Spotify was my first music streaming platform, so I was naturally on team Spotify up until recently. Here’s the story of why I suddenly switched streaming services.
I switched to Apple Music in March 2024, when I got a notification saying I could get three months for free. My boyfriend had been pushing me to get Apple Music ever since we started dating. He told me that I “need to get Apple Music so we can make a shared playlist together.”
So to make him stop whining that I didn’t have it, I caved in and started the free trial.
For the first two months, I was very hesitant about Apple Music. I couldn’t understand the layout and I was having a lot of trouble navigating the app. This is something I have never experienced with Spotify and is one of the reasons I have heard in regards to why people think that Spotify is better.
But as the three-month trial came to an end, I was told I could get a student discount, which includes Apple Podcast and Apple TV. I still haven’t used Apple Podcast or Apple TV, but at the time I thought I would. I ended up getting the discount, and I’m still paying $5.99 per month today.
So that’s the story, now back to why I think it is better.
Apple Music has a library section called “genres” (something Spotify does not have) which will sort all your favorite songs and albums into what genre they are listed as. According to the Apple Support Team, this helps their algorithm to recommend songs or other artists/bands you might like based on what genre you are currently listening to.
I have had issues with Spotify recommending songs and artists that sound nothing like the songs I listen to, which has made it difficult for me to find more artists I would love.
For example, I added a song from the punk rock band Pierce the Veil (PTV) to my playlist and then Spotify recommended early 2000s indie songs that sounded nothing like PTV.
Apple Music also has a lot more sections in your library that Spotify doesn’t have — like composers; this allows you to find who is writing the songs that you are listening to and lets you check out their other work, TV and movies so you can watch their music documentaries and music videos.
Another reason I think Apple Music is better is because it sounds cleaner and smoother through headphones. According to a CNN Underscore article, this is because Apple adds things in for iOS users to get better-sounding audio.
The last reason I have to go with Apple Music is based on how much they pay their artist per stream. According to Sugo Music, Apple Music pays their artist one cent per stream. You may be thinking, “One whole cent, there is no way Spotify can pay less than that,” but you would be wrong. According to Printify, Spotify pays their artists at most $0.005, which is half of a penny!
This may be “no big deal” to well-known artists who are already famous and get money from brand deals or social media posts, but it is significant for lesser-known artists who are on the rise, like the band Fwango who is on both Spotify and Apple Music.
To show you how little $0.005 is, we can look at how much Fwango gets paid.
Fwango has roughly 59,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, meaning they would receive $295 a month from Spotify for their streams.
Apple Music doesn’t list out the total monthly listeners for every artist/band, so I can’t tell you how many listeners Fwango has and how much they are getting paid, but if they have the same monthly listeners as they do on Spotify, they would receive $590 a month from Apple Music. This is double what they make on Spotify.
Now I do give Spotify the upper hand here, I love Spotify Wrapped! Sadly, I haven’t used Spotify much this year, so mine isn’t going to show my exact listening data, which I’m very sad about.
Apple Music does have something similar to this called Apple Music Replay, but they lack cool facts like “Your music taste is like a vampire” (which is something I got in my 2023 Spotify Wrapped).
As much as I love Spotify Wrapped, I don’t think I will be switching back to Spotify any time soon. I like having a shared playlist with my boyfriend and there is no way that he is switching over to Spotify.