Last August, Universal launched the Peaceful Music playlist on Apple Music. It was described at the time as an “ever-evolving playlist” and the “first playlist brand to be created by Universal Music Group in conjunction with Apple Music and artist ambassadors”.

Max Richter was the first artist to act as curator on there at the playlist’s launch – eventually leading into a standalone playlist (Max Richter – Peaceful Music). It was clearly a move by the major to muscle in on the mood-based playlists that Spotify has dominated with on its own platforms. This was also, arguably, a move by Apple to be seen as more willing to let third-party playlists brands build their profile rather than stonewalling them with its own inhouse playlists.

Now Ólafur Arnalds is the latest UMG act to roll up their taste-making sleeves to oversee this flagship playlist for the major. It, of course, opens with one of his own pieces (‘Not Alone’) and he crops up multiple times in the 109-song playlist.

UMG has also expanded into other playlists under the same umbrella – offering both Peaceful Sleep and Peaceful Beats.

Unlike on Spotify, there are no play numbers or follower counts on Apple Music, but UMG has said in a press release that it “has already proved to be a hit with millions of streams”. Exactly how many millions remains unclear.

What is most interesting is that UMG has, for now, not tried to migrate this brand onto Spotify. That might be down in part to that fact that both the “Peaceful Music” and “Peaceful music” (note lower-case ‘m’ in the second one) are taken by general users of Spotify while the service itself has claimed “Peaceful Retreat” and “Peaceful Choral Music”, while “Peaceful Sleep” is being credited to Digster (UMG’s original in-house playlist brand that it launched in 2011).

For now it seems that Apple is presenting itself as more “favourable” to labels’ own playlists. How long this remains the case, however, will be the real test.