Apple Music has come a long way since it was first introduced in 2015, but exactly how many songs are available on the platform in 2022? Apple Music’s journey to become one of the top music streaming services started in 2014, when Apple purchased Beats Music and Beats Electronics for a total of $3 billion. Most people know that Apple purchased Beats Electronics — which makes the company’s popular Beats headphones and earbuds — but a more important part of that deal was the acquisition of Beats Music. It laid the groundwork for Apple Music, and its eventual growth.
Beats Music was a standalone, subscription-based streaming service that used a bubble system to personalize a user’s experience, and the bubbles would grow to show a user’s interest in an artist or genre of music. Shortly after the acquisition, the groundwork laid by Beats Music became Apple Music. The original service was shut down, and Apple Music fit right into the company’s shift from iTunes purchases to subscription-based streaming. But in the years since Apple Music debuted, it has gained a lot of songs, and the total number is surprising.
Apple announced in October 2022 that it had surpassed 100 million songs on Apple Music, a massive growth compared to where the company’s music offerings began. Apple’s now-defunct iTunes app served as the hub for music services, and connected to iPods and iPhones. Initially, those devices could only store a thousand songs at one time, which made the choice of what songs, albums, or playlists to include difficult. Now, the choice is much simpler — anytime a user has an internet or cellular connection, they can tap into a wide catalog of over 100 million songs.
Apple Music’s Numbers Are Promising
So, how has Apple Music grown so much over the last few years? Apple cites the easy process for making songs and albums available on the service as a reason for the company’s massive Apple Music catalog. People can write and record songs in 167 countries and regions in 2022 to be hosted on Apple Music, making content distribution more accessible. Apple says that over 20,000 singers and songwriters are making new songs available on Apple Music each day, so the number is rising continuously.
Though it seems obvious that streaming services will gain tracks as time goes on, it’s actually more complicated than that. Just like movies and TV shows change streaming services as different companies purchase or rent rights to the content, the same process affects music. There is a negotiation that occurs to get music on streaming services, and that doesn’t always go to plan. In the early days of Apple Music, Taylor Swift’s music was unavailable on the platform in protest of artist compensation rates. More recently, some of Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre’s content was pulled from Apple Music. All of these factors affect just how many songs and albums are available on Apple Music, but the overall numbers are promising.
Source: Apple
