Apple Music’s ‘All Time Replay’ Lets You Relive Your Top Hits of the Past Decade
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It’s hard to believe we’ve been enjoying Apple Music for a decade, but today marks the 10th anniversary of Apple’s music streaming service’s launch on June 30, 2015.
Apple is commemorating the event in several ways, but one of the most interesting to end users of Apple Music is Replay All Time, an expanded version of Apple’s annual Apple Music Replay that lets you see and stream your top songs over the entire decade, rather than only within a single year. The special new playlist can be streamed directly in the Apple Music app on iPhone, iPad, or Mac, where you can find it on the Home tab.
Apple was late to the streaming game, which was a somewhat ironic twist for the company that led the digital music revolution with the iPod and the launch of the iTunes Store in 2003. Apple was the first major company to sell digital music, pioneering a $0.99-per-track pricing model in an era when people had become accustomed to paying full album prices to buy CDs. However, others, such as Spotify, MOG (which later became the foundation of Beats Music), Rdio, Google, Amazon, and Tidal, have surpassed Apple in introducing streaming services.
Undoubtedly realizing it had to get its head in the game, Apple dropped $3 billion to buy Beats Electronics in 2014, acquiring both the headphone brand and the company’s fledgling music service. It’s still the largest acquisition the company has ever made, but it was money well spent, as it used that infrastructure to launch Apple Music less than 12 months later.
Beats Music was the brainchild of Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, who envisioned a streaming service built on human curation rather than soulless algorithms. That fit well into Apple’s style, and in acquiring Beats, it not only gained a head start in technology and infrastructure but also benefited from the industry connections that Iovine and Dre had already established. While Dre took a back seat, Iovine played a pivotal role in launching Apple Music. The rest, as they say, is history.
Apple Music has evolved into more than just a music service for Apple fans. The company wasted no time launching an Android app, with a beta version available just over four months after the service’s launch. The “beta” label was removed the following summer in an update that also included several other key enhancements that were unique to Android, such as an equalizer, support for widgets, and the ability to store music on an SD card.
Apple has also continued to support the music industry in ways that no other streaming service has been able to match, paying higher royalties than most, creating unique documentaries, and hosting Apple Music Awards to recognize top and emerging artists.
Now, Apple is marking the service’s 10th anniversary in the same spirit of building connections between music fans and artists. It will be opening a brand-new, state-of-the-art studio space in Los Angeles, “dedicated to artist-driven content, innovation in audio, and deeper fan connection.”
As Apple notes, the new studio will support artists by giving them access to “the tools, platform, and creative freedom to tell their stories in entirely new ways.” The 15,000-square-foot facility will include two advanced radio studies with immersive Spatial Audio playback, a 4,000-square-foot soundstage for live performances, Multicam shoots, fan events, and screenings, a Spatial Audio mixing room with a 9.2.4 PMC speaker system, and even a photo and social media lab, edit room, and green room for relax-time content creation.
“Apple Music Radio has always been a home for storytelling and artistry, serving as a space for bold conversations and surprising moments,” said Rachel Newman, Apple Music’s co-head. “With this new studio, we are furthering our commitment to creating a space for artists to create, connect, and share their vision.”
There will also be private isolation booths where songwriters can work in solitude, or podcasters can conduct programs and one-on-one interviews.
When Apple Music launched in 2015, it went beyond an on-demand streaming library. Apple also used the opportunity to branch into live radio, hiring DJ Zane Lowe to helm a new station called Beats 1 to not only stream curated music hosted by real DJs but also let artists share stories about their music through live interviews.
When we first launched Beats 1 it was a leap of faith, the first live global radio station for a digital world. We knew we wanted to build something special where artists could come and tell their stories and fans could feel connected. Ten years on, Apple Music Radio is everything we hoped it would be. It’s a place where we can eventize music, a place where music comes first, always. I’m just as excited for what’s to come as I was on day one.
Zane Lowe
Beats 1 broadcast from Los Angeles, New York, and London, allowing it to effectively operate on a 24/7 schedule. In 2020, Apple rebranded it as Apple Music 1 and added two new stations to the mix, Apple Music Hits and Apple Music Country, hosted by artists and personalities like Huey Lewis, the Backstreet Boys, Kelleigh Bannen, and Ty Bentli.
To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Apple Music Radio will feature a week of specials and live programming, which kicked off this morning with Don’t Be Boring: The Birth of Apple Music Radio with Zane Lowe and Ebro Darden. This will continue with 10 Years of Apple Music to tell the stories of the greatest artist moments and cultural milestones of the service, followed by Live: 10 Years of Apple Music, which will feature a lineup of artists who have made the service what it is today.
Starting tomorrow, Apple Music Radio will unveil the service’s top 500 most-streamed songs from the last decade in a special countdown. This will feature 100 songs per day, with the top 100 most-streamed songs of all time presented on July 5. Once the countdown ends, Apple will publish the full 10 Years of Apple Music: Top Songs playlist for any subscriber to stream.
