Heavy Rotation Mix. So What?

Since the latest releases, Chart Your Music supports the import of playlists, from Spotify and (chart) playlists from Apple Music, as a chart into one of your collections.  So, you can create a collection, named Top 100 Global, and use the Apple Music integration to import every week the latest Top 100 Global from Apple Music charts. Or, in Spotify subscribe to the Billboard Hot 100 playlist, and similarly import every week the latest Billboard chart in your Billboard Hot 100 collection.  Unfortunately, Spotify does not support public API access to charts anymore, so that is why you have to rely on public playlists for this functionality.

Initially, the import feature was limited to Apple Music charts, as that music service does offer and provide public API access to true charts. A feature request from one of the users of the app was around allowing any playlist to be imported as a chart. Actually, the request was focusing on the newly launched Heavy Rotation Mix playlist from Apple Music but I took a broader approach. As the Heavy Rotation Mix is presumably updated daily, based on what you listen to in Apple Music, you can create a daily capture of that.

Intrigued by this feature request, and after adding support for it in the app, I tried out the above myself to see whether this Heavy Rotation Mix was any good and potentially could be a, albeit simple, replacement for Chart Your Music. For over two weeks, I imported the Heavy Rotation Mix into a collection in the app. Doing so, I noticed a couple of things:

• The updates of the Heavy Rotation Mix are a bit unpredictable to put it mildly. Sometimes they come in daily, sometimes it takes a couple of days.

• The algorithm seems to be a bit off; I can definitely see that the playlist picks up the songs I listen to more often. But if I listen to an album and play a specific song a bit more from that album than others, the algorithm doesn’t seem to reflect that.

• If you do not listen to music for a day, the playlist is not updated, which makes sense. But should you then import the unchanged playlist as a new chart? Puzzled…

  
  

One of the reasons I developed Chart Your Music is that it helps you to keep track of the music you love… over time… And that it helps you to be in control of your own music charts, not solely determined by (accidental) listening behaviour, but carefully curated by you. To quote myself from a previous article: "The beauty of all this (collecting personal charts) is that, over time, it becomes your musical diary; you can revisit how singles, albums, tracks did impress you, wonder how certain music ever ended up in the chart (what were you thinking?) and get surprised how certain entries meander over a period of time through the charts to make a big footprint and other entries go as quickly as they come".

The Heavy Rotation Mix does not seem to be an alternative. For a number of reasons:

• In your own curated charts you won’t see accidental tracks that happen to become popular because these are triggered to play by accident. I remember Aaliyah’s songs being vastly popular in the past according to  iTunes. Just simply because her songs were the lexicographic first songs played automatically when my iPod connected to my car audio.

• In the app you can create charts not only consisting of tracks or songs, but also album charts. The real music lover still craves albums; the ultimate culmination of a musician or band’s artistic process. An album is sometimes so much more than just the sum of its songs. 

• You can go back in time, which is not possible with the Heavy Rotation Mix. It is not without purpose I wrote above “you could actually create a daily recording of what you are listening to”. There is no past tense possible here. Once you forget to import the Heavy Rotation Mix on a day, there is no turning back. That Apple Music capture of the tracks you listened to on that day was there, but is gone forever. (I can see another feature request: automatic import of charts…)

• You can retrieve deep insights from your collections, charts and entries. Nothing like that is possible in Apple Music or Spotify. Not with the Heavy Rotation Mix or in general. Chart Your Music goes beyond the info that Apple Music or Spotify provides and taps on info available from sources like Last.fm, Genius and Discogs.

• You can chart tracks, songs or albums not (currently or forever) available in iTunes, Apple Music or Spotify. Just to name a couple of recent examples: Cindy Lee — Diamond Jubilee, Sault — Acts of Faith. Just add a blank entry to your chart, provide details and the track, song or album becomes part of your musical diary.

• Most importantly, there is nothing like your own music taste that tells the truth. No algorithms like the yearly Apple Music Replay or Spotify Wrapped, or the now daily Heavy Rotation Mix can replace how you feel and love about music. Chart Your Music is there to capture exactly that.

So, although the Heavy Rotation Mix definitely serves a purpose, I am happy to conclude Chart Your Music still has a unique position in the music app landscape. And hopefully it can remain of value for the true music (chart) lovers. 

Let me know, if you want any additional features for the app. And if you do appreciate the app, use the App Store’s review to rate or write a review.