With all the hundreds and thousands places to discover new music online, it was inevitable that some clever clogs would come up with a way of injecting some mystery and excitement into what , is now, a fast-paced information-heavy music stream. Step forward, the actual clever clogs operators of Unknown-Untitled.com who of course, are themselves anonymous internet mischief-makers.
The concept is a simple and welcome one. Using a Soundcloud page, the Unknown Untitled project organisers upload a song from an electronic artist with no artist or track info. After 14 days, the artist info is announced meaning you listen to the song without any preconceptions or notions. It’s like radio except you deliberatly have to wait two weeks to find out what that song is you liked. Artists involved so far are drawn from London scene with names like Mak & Pasteman, Beau and Blacksmif but quality is high even if artist names are not. Team #Unknown, as they call themselves are hoping to expand the concept into an old school vinyl release next year.
Speaking of novel ideas, the latest Music Hack Day where developers get together and build cool music apps for the future took place in Boston last week. 56 notable, useful, small and silly apps were generated in the short timeframe. For example: Mustachiness creates a moustache images out of song waveforms just in time for Movember, Spartify makes Spotify party playlists easy, Snuggle synchronises the internet’s greatest medium the Animated GIF to music and Bohemian Rhapsichord turns Queen’s famous hit into an instrument. You can see all 56 Music Hack Day ideas and apps at bit.ly/bostonhacks.
My favourite two apps of Music Hack Day Boston are Drinkify and Christmas Findr. Drinkify has already taken off on social networks. Enter an artist name and the site will suggest an alcoholic beverage that matches it for a finer music experience. There are some interesting suggestions too: “The Black Sabbath” features whiskey, tonic water and ice-cream and “The Justin Bieber” is an under-18 friendly Red Bull on the rocks. Listening to Bad Romance? Gaga fans should go for straight vodka garnished with an olive. Dylan enthusiasts? Gin and cough syrup are good accompaniments apparently while Slayer fans should go for the suitable cocktail of equal mix blood and wheatgrass juice.
Christmas Findr is the most useful of the lot (bit.ly/christmashack). I know it’s only November but everyone hates bad Christmas music and there’s lots of it. Christmas Findr helps you find the good stuff, organised by genre so you can avoid Twisted Sister’s hilariously bad metal Twisted Christmas album or Keith Sweat’s family-inappropriate A Christmas of Love album of sexy Yuletide slow jams. That one is definitely too sexy for having the in-laws over so choose wiser.
