Playlists are mixtapes, we need mixtapes

General
1

I think this post by mx luna corbden captures succinctly a real problem for listeners that is looking for a solution

I feel like a good open solution could be a “killer app” for indie music platforms

I feel like the indie beat is looking to enable this in some way, already enabling external curation for nham, audio interface, and bonkwave but falling short of the tech needed to enable for everyone (and of course across platforms).

Read the thread at the link above please

2 Likes
2

Great thread. Yeah, I’ve been banging on about the need for a Fedi Music app for a long time now, which I think would partly fill the gap OP describes.

  • Using existing social connections formed on Fedi: sign in with your Masto account.
  • App is for listening to music. Has a persistent (& play-in-background on mobile) music player.
  • Ideally, play music from a lot of different sources (eg Bandcamp, Mirlo, Faircamp) — although this will take a bit of legal shite being sorted. RSS optin might do it.
  • Follow people with music taste you like, who make playlists or do album recommendations. With or without a text post.
  • Favourite, bookmark, wishlist functionality for music tracks and albums.
  • Follow musicians, labels and curators. Choice between following them on Fedi, Bandcamp, Mirlo, etc — wherever those options exist.
2 Likes
3

However, because the streaming services have everything and even Bandcamp is more niche… I think this idea would not tick the boxes for OP?

Most people wanna include more mainstream artists in their playlists, maybe. So we would need one of the big streamers on board. Something that distros like Distrokid etc automatically include. Qobuz? IHeartRadio? Pandora? Not sure who the more ethical options are, or if they even exist.

4

I reckon there already exist (or have existed) several of these “killer apps” which can play music from totally different sources, but let’s be honest, those mostly use Youtube. Haven’t search for them in a big long time.
I remember Openwhyd and 8tracks specifically.

I was a convinced user of 8tracks for the time it lasted, unfortunately it was surfing on american copyright laws by being categorized as a radio (not able to skip more than x songs and other quirks). So it was not *legally* available in other countries, and went away like a fad. It too was picking up music from Youtube BUT it also allowed you to upload your own music that you totally owned the rights to wink wink.

What it did right was the social aspect of playlists, with playlist name, cover, description, author, and tags, with a search engine and recommandation algorithm that was really good. It really had this “i made something cool” feeling to it.

3 Likes
5

It feels like the “music smart link sites” are most of the way there, but fall just shy of what the OP wants, in terms of a “streaming platform agnostic” playlist.

I mean sites like:

Songlink/Odesli - Songwhip - SoundLink - Linkfire - ToneDen -Hypeddit - Listen.It - MusicJet - Soundplate - Feature.fm

e.g like: https://song.link/i/1572741531

They have the data correlating all of the tracks and albums for artists on all of the different streaming platforms but lack the next level up that would let you create playlists and do playback via the user’s platform of choice – or better yet, from the user’s platforms (plural), whichever they have access to… this nice thing here is fair platforms tend to give access to anyone and everyone and have a leg up in that regard, whereas Apple Music is locked down, for example.

2 Likes
6

Watching latest Lorenzo’s Music podcast… realizing this is a feature of or could use the MusicBrainz database for correlation of tracks across platforms.

7

:rofl:

Sounds like listenbrainz might be working on something similar for early next year.

1 Like
8

When I saw this discussion, I thought about what he was saying of his ListenBrainz project too.

Also, from what Robert and I talked about, it wouldn’t be surprising if a lot of those examples that were mentioned above were also pulling their info from MusicBrainz too, based on what he spoke of what they do.

2 Likes