Listening to the Hits One station on Sirius Radio in the car may keep me somewhat up with the latest pop hits (even though my kids always know the lyrics before I do), but I still find myself saying “who?” to every new up-and-comer that is mentioned. Can Twitter’s new Music service help?
Twitter Music is essentially a free web and mobile app (just for iOS for now) that helps you find popular music, follow your favorite bands and see what others are listening to. Using a very visually-focused interface, Twitter Music has a sleek feel that lets you see album covers and even listen to songs, directly on the site.
In other words, I can stay on top of all the music trends from Bruno Mars, Paramore and yes, even Psy. Who is now ranking as #1 evidently. Again.
Open it and you’ll find four pages (tabs, really) of music that you can keep track of:
Popular: Rankings of music that is trending on Twitter.
Emerging: Musical artists that are up and coming or are “hidden talent found in the tweets.”
Suggested: Other bands you may like depending on who you already follow (provided the algorithm is as good as say, Pandora)
#NowPlaying: Songs that people you follow are listening to or tweeting about. So make sure you’re following cool people! Or prepare to make fun of them.
The site is very user-friendly and fun to play around with. There’s a little Twitter icon in the corner of each artist’s logo that lets you follow that particular artist in one click, and clicking on the artist’s name will bring you to page like this that shows you the artist’s profile and other musicians they follow.
Also cool: If you have accounts with integrated services like Rdio, Spotify or iTunes, you can play the songs directly from the page and hear full tracks.
The free Twitter Music mobile app for iOS is equally easy-to-use. (Gah, sorry Android users! Surely yours is coming.) Here you can also scroll through new artists and listen to full tracks with a Rdio or Spotify account. But keep in mind, it’s not a streaming music service, but rather a way to discover what’s trending and what’s hot. Thus, the connection to the other accounts.
So a Spotify, for example, is clearly not competing with Twitter Music, but banking on Twitter to send them more listeners and time with their own services. That may be disappointing if you’re hoping to everything in the world from Twitter, the way Facebook is starting to go. But personally, we think it’s nice to have some separation.
While I’m sure Hits One will remain as the station of choice in my car for a while, and you will continue to listen to the services you already like, it seems like this could be a cool way, in just a few clicks, to keep up with your kids when you discover they know every single word to Avril Lavigne songs. In kindergarten. –Jeana
Twitter Music is available now on the web and as a free mobile app for iOS from iTunes (no word yet on the Android version).
