Does ‘Disliking’ music on Apple Music actually do anything?

Apple Music 'Dislike' tag on macOS
Apple Music ‘Dislike’ tag on macOS

‘Disliking’ songs or albums on Apple Music doesn’t seem to actually do anything of consequence.

Kirk McElhearn for Kirkville:

I would expect that telling Apple Music what I “love” and what I don’t like will have some effect on my recommendations. I think that the “love” declaration does help the algorithm, but the “dislike” option does nothing. (It’s worth noting that on iOS, the term “dislike” is not used: the option is Suggest Less Like This.)

It’s not just in recommendations that “dislikes” are ignored. In New Releases, I get lots of stuff that I don’t like, and if I explicitly dislike an album, I’d expect it to not remain in the list.

MacDailyNews Take: Apple Music is for music lovers, not haters, dontcha know? 😉

6 Comments

  1. This is a valid observation and something Apple should correct. On my HomePods, if I ask Siri to ‘play me some music I would like’, I generally get some very good selections. But occasionally something obnoxious shows up. I say, Hey Siri, I don’t like this, please go to the next song. Siri replies, “Got it, I’ll remember that you don’t like this song” – but then 2 days later, I’ll get the same bad song. – Siri lied/can’t remember. This could be fixed and it would be a useful improvement.

  2. What would “like” is an actual way to shut off “suggestions” , doesnt seem to actually work, they come at the exact time I dont have time for them. And I have been a self-sufficient adult for a long time.

  3. After my 4th free Apple Music trial I still see no reason to subscribe, I used it twice in a month. The Beats Music service before Apple bought it was much better. I hate having my library jumbled in with Apple’s service, the user interface is confusing and unintuitive (and how utterly stupid that you can’t go from a now playing song in control center to the album in Music) and the periodic spam notifications to subscribe to Apple Music are invasive. The only Apple service I subscribe to is iCloud and I don’t have any desire to subscribe to more.

  4. I listen to Apple Music 3-4 days a week, often for several hours. I don’t mind at all having my “collection“ mixed in with NEARLY EVERY SONG THATS EVER BEEN PUBLISHED. I usually find things in my “collection” (quotes because it’s sort of irrelevant what I collected before, now that it’s all included with my subscription) by searching for them, and I love that if I search for something that was never in my collection it nearly always shows up just the same. I especially like listening to my New Music playlist on Fridays. It usually has around 90% stuff I like, so I rarely bother to “dislike.”

    It’s not all roses. I enjoy listening to at least half a dozen widely different genres (reggae, metal, singer-songwriter, pop, electro/dance, etc). My weekly New Music playlist usually has “sections” of each. Often but not always, distinct sections of 3-5 songs of each genre, separated from each other and sequential. But I’m not always in the mood to listen to them that way. Sometimes I might like a longer playlist of just one or two of the genres; sometimes I’d like a more “eclectic” mix that bounces around more. So my #1 improvement to Apple Music would be to offer many separate weekly “my new music” sections in specific genres, with the ability to easily select one or several of them to “shuffle” among.

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