I’m a pretty big music fan. If I’m working at a computer, odds are good I’ve got music playing. If I’m writing, same thing, only it’ll all be instrumental stuff. (For whatever reason, I can’t write fiction and listen to something with vocals at the same time.)

My habits are pretty straightforward. I like listening to albums, complete albums, all the way through. I like sticking to particular genres or artists depending on my mood that day. I’m also stuck in iTunes, which is (fine, whatever, if only). In iTunes, I mark albums I really like as loved, and sort my albums by artist, then by year. This is mostly because I think it’s neat seeing how artists and groups evolve and change over time: it’s nice being able to see the usually-continuous line of creative output.

This is all fine, as far as desktop listening goes, but recently I threw more money at Apple to sign up for iCloud Music Library, which means they’re (ostensibly) smart and able to push all my shit up to the cloud, then let me pull it back down again from other places. These other places end up being iOS devices, in almost all cases. (I’m holding out hope that the HomePod eventually lets me use my library).

Which brings me to my point of sadness: the Music app on iOS doesn’t do what I want.

I’m a simple man with simple tastes: I want sorting as described above, and I want album shuffle. I have a list of albums I really like, and I don’t really care about what order they’re played in, but the songs pretty much have to be in the right album-order, or I lose my mind and start foaming at the mouth. (Ask my coworkers, they’ll agree, it’s unsightly and embarrassing.)

I don’t really have a conclusion, other than it’d be nice, I guess. Maybe I’ll get around to filing a radar, someday.