Apple Music’s new beta feature, designed to generate playlists from text prompts, demonstrates a significant lack of comprehension when it comes to fundamental musical attributes such as genre, temporal context, or overall thematic understanding.
This deficiency was starkly illustrated in a recent interaction:
Apple Music: “What do you want to hear?”
User: “Atmospheric instrumental black metal to write to.”
Apple Music: “Here’s three metal songs with vocals, a field recording, an ambient electronic track, and a piece of doom jazz.”
While an inherent skepticism towards AI’s capacity to precisely curate music choices exists, the underwhelming performance of Apple’s "Playlist Playground" beta was notably surprising. In contrast, YouTube Music’s AI playlist generator, though imperfect, managed to maintain instrumental consistency for the requested "instrumental black metal" for five tracks before including lyrics, which was an anomaly rather than the norm. Apple Music, however, faltered immediately and consistently.
Further testing explored a "modern ambient black metal from the American South" prompt. The beta only identified three potentially relevant songs. Alarmingly, one of these was by the band Woman is the Earth, hailing from South Dakota. Despite acknowledging a common American geographical blind spot, it's highly improbable that South Dakota aligns with "the South."
Presuming a potential unfamiliarity with black metal, a seemingly simpler request was made for "kid-friendly modern hip hop." The initial track provided was merely the censored version of Kendrick Lamar’s “DNA,” which, while technically censored, raises questions about its "kid-friendly" suitability.
Subsequently, the playlist included the censored version of Kid Capri’s “We’re Unified,” a track released in 1998. Even with a broad definition of "modern," this selection falls short. A significant portion of the playlist consisted of older material: six out of 16 songs were over 15 years old, and three exceeded 25 years.
The most egregious error was the inclusion of “ABC” by Chicken P, a song that alphabetically lists sexual conquests, featuring explicit lyrics such as, “Desiree, take dick, she be telling me ‘go deeper.’” This content is unequivocally inappropriate for young children.
Such glaring oversights are particularly perplexing given the availability of genuinely kid-friendly and modern options, including the Spider-Verse soundtracks, Tyler the Creator’s The Grinch EP, and works by Aesop Rock.
A prompt for "industrial-influenced dance punk" was anticipated to be straightforward, yet it also proved challenging for the AI. While specific bands like Model/Actriz and Special Interest were expected, neither appeared. Instead, half of the playlist comprised classic industrial artists such as Cabaret Voltaire, Einstürzende Neubauten, Ministry, Front 242, and Nine Inch Nails. Unexpectedly, New Order’s “Blue Monday” and Irish rappers Kneecap were also included.
As a beta product, some issues are naturally expected. However, the consistent and often spectacular failures observed suggest that Playlist Playground is not yet ready for a public beta release. Beyond its outright errors, the generated playlists were frequently uninspired, offering little in the way of novel artist discovery. Apple did not respond to a request for comment regarding these findings.
Ultimately, Apple’s AI playlist creator demonstrates considerable struggles with understanding genre, geographical context, temporal relevance, and lyrical appropriateness. A final test, requesting a playlist for "School pickup on a chilly day with no children’s music," yielded results akin to the Garden State soundtrack (featuring artists like The Shins, Nick Drake, and José Gonzalez). On a positive note, at least it successfully avoided any Parry Gripp.
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