The skit, If Music Streaming Services Were Your Exes (Spotify vs. Apple Music), personifies streaming services as different men, each of whom has romantic entanglements with a woman protaganist. It’s quickly revealed that she’s leaving her main squeeze, Spotify, for someone else: Apple Music. Actors playing both services vie for her favor, alongside personified versions of Tidal and Pandora.
The sketch is full of entertaining streaming humor that users of the services will love. For example, when Spotify asks his ex why she’d leave him and if it’s something he did or said, she reassures him that his playlists are good and that he “hardly said anything after Premium,” alluding to the commercial-free version of the service.
Then, after she admits she’s breaking up with him for Apple Music, he’s appalled that she’d choose a “buggy, user-interface-jumbled waste of data.” When Pandora chimes in, he abruptly tries to switch the conversation to a completely unrelated topic, poking fun at the unrelated artists that sometimes pop up on personalized Pandora stations. Tidal, on the other hand, is loaded with bling, and struggling to fit all of his money into his wallet.
Spotify continues to push for answers, laying out all he can offer, until his ex finally reveals the truth: the real reason she’s leaving him goes by the name of Taylor Swift. In spite of their comparable pricing and Spotify’s superior playlists, she couldn’t resist 1989, which Apple Music now streams exclusively. As Spotify sits crushed by this blow at the end of the video, Pandora quips, “She’ll be back, man. Just give it three months,” which is, of course, the time period of Apple Music’s free trial.
In addition to making us laugh, the video does a great job of illustrating the personal relationship we have with our streaming services, as well as touching on a key point: When users’ three-month trial period with Apple Music expires, it’ll be interesting to see if the switch was only a fling, or if people are willing to commit to a long-term relationship with the newest streamer on the block.
