What does the star next to songs in Apple Music mean?

Since launching in 2015, Apple Music has been on a mission to become the most popular music streaming app and recapture the glory days of iTunes. Before streaming became the main method of music consumption, iTunes ruled and the iTunes Store, a digital one-stop shop where users could purchase music online, revolutionized music downloads as we knew them. Before iTunes, buying an individual song was unheard of; if someone only liked one song off an album, they would have to make the difficult choice between purchasing an entire album of mostly middling songs or going on without their newest fave. With the iTunes store, music listeners no longer had to make this choice; they could pick and choose which songs to buy from a musician’s discography.

iTunes soon became a method to track which songs were most popular, with some fans even favoring the iTunes charts over Billboard’s. A song reaching the coveted number-one spot was an accomplishment and something for the stans of the time to brag about on Twitter (some things never change). By the mid-2010s, downloading music fell out of popularity and streaming overwhelmingly became the world’s preferred way to listen to music. Apple wanted a piece of that streaming pie and so, after years of speculation, finally launched Apple Music to compete with streaming giant Spotify.

While they have yet to revolutionize streaming as they did with downloads in the past, Apple Music is the second most popular music streaming service right behind Spotify, with a staggering 88 million users this past year. To reach this many people, Apple Music has to keep its service at the forefront of industry trends while maintaining a user-friendly interface. Apple Music continues to add new features to the app and some can be initially more confusing than helpful, such as the star which can be seen next to some album tracks.

What is the significance of the star in Apple Music?

If you see a star next to a song name, it means the song is one of the most popular tracks according to Apple Music listeners. In previous versions of Apple Music, users could assign a rating out of five stars to songs, but this is no longer available in the most recent version of the app. The star used to be directly related to these user ratings, but it’s now unclear how songs are deemed “hot tracks.”

Although Apple Music has expressed multiple times that stars mean a song is popular, the company has never explained the methodology behind this feature. From what we can gather, songs with stars next to them are either the most-loved or most streamed tracks. Most of these tracks are album singles but it seems a song does not have to be a single to earn the star.

Some Apple Music users have expressed distaste for the star feature and are nostalgic for the five-star rating system. We’re not sure if the old system will ever make a return but until then, listen to some starred tracks. You might just discover your next fave song.