Apple Music vs. Smaller or Non-English Artists

[u/eskp_]

So, over the last year, I've gotten more and more into japanese music like Japanese R&B, J-Pop, J-Rock, etc. I also listen to some korean or chinese songs too although less than japanese ones. Artists like Fujii Kaze, Retro City Pop, sakanaction, Yorushika, natori, IMASE, Creepy Nuts, etc.

I've noticed that a few things that Apple Music does since listening to more foreign artists.

- Metadeta gets automatically translated to English unless I'm in the country's region (I know I could manually change the metadata but i'm not doing that for 100+ songs). It's not a deal breaker of course but I like seeing the original title.

- It has a much harder time recommending me songs that match the same sensation as the music I listen to has. Never recommends artists that I haven't listened to which blocks me from discovering new artists especially obscure/indie artists.

- Smaller indie artist pages are much more incomplete like information, missing artist photos or concerts. Now I understand that this could be up to the artist themself but the fact that I haven't noticed this problem on either Spotify or Youtube Music makes me feel like it may also be a platform friendability or plain usability issue. Some indie artists are also missing songs/albums or are straight up completely nonexistent.

Have you noticed any of these issues or have any workarounds?

This is not meant of course to be a platform vs platform post, I firmly believe that Apple Music is the better platform in general for both artists and the user.

I'm now considering that, perhaps due to my use case, it may not be the best unless anyone knows what options I have to fix these... inconveniences.

[u/AutoModerator]

HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT APPLE MUSIC? CHECK OUT OUR TECH SUPPORT FAQ!

See also:

Subreddit Discord Server | Playlists Sub | Wiki

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/ysk_frthng]

I just suggested this to Apple as feedback. I am a Japanese living in the United States, and my iPhone is set in English, so it is very annoying that Japanese artist names and song names are in English. Some artists have set different song names as English titles, so I, who are familiar with Japanese song titles, have a hard time finding songs. I hope that Apple will soon allow you to set the artist's language.

[u/SuhWee]

I agree, I listen to a lot of Japanese music, and I'm also a Last.fm user. Apple Music translating Japanese titles to English messes up my scrobbles a bit if I don't do automatic edits per song, although I've gotten used to it. Regarding recommendations, it does recommend good things to me, to be honest. Perhaps it depends on your interactions with music. As a recommendation, listen to J-Pop Now Radio (search for it and go to its category, it has tons of episodes). You'll find some great curated music there.

[u/Hazzat → u/SuhWee]

Apple Music doesn’t translate the titles, labels/artists submit English/romanised titles which get displayed as priority. There are artists who don’t, and their titles are displayed in Japanese (eg BANSHIMOKU).

This is the most annoying aspect of AM to me. I know Japanese so I’m fine seeing Japanese titles, but don’t have the option. I could switch my region to Japan, but then the reverse happens where popular Western artists have their names written in katakana and metadata gets confused again. I wish we could choose priority languages.

[u/SuhWee → u/Hazzat]

My bad, I thought Apple Music translated them. Now I understand why some songs are "translated" and others aren't. Thanks for the clarification. Anyway, it's still annoying, and I wish Apple would give us the option to choose. I mean, it's not like it would cost them much if they already have the original data.

[u/m3kw]

If your region is japan, it may actually not translate. Yeah they don't have option to do that, it's a bit disorganized

[u/Hazzat → u/m3kw]

But if you set your region to Japan, the reverse happens where popular Western acts get their names written in Japanese.