If new songs have been released since you last used the app, the next time you launch Record Bird you’ll be presented with a swipeable carousel of cards listing what’s new. Record Bird is the daily feed for music lovers that Connect should have been, and I find myself opening it every day to discover or listen to something new.īecause Record Bird has been built around discovery of new music, it cuts to the chase. The result is unified dashboard of everything you would want to know about new music releases that goes beyond letting you stream songs from this week’s most popular artists. In addition to a complete feed of every new release you care about, Record Bird matches artists and songs with YouTube videos and articles about them from music blogs and magazines finally, it categorizes releases based on media (such as digital, CD, vinyl, and even DVD), type (single, album, EP), and it contains filters for reissues and karaoke versions (which I disabled). Whenever a new single or album from an artist you follow comes out, Record Bird will show you the cover and buttons to buy it or stream it on Apple Music and Spotify.īut there’s more. Record Bird keeps a reverse chronological feed of every announcement from every artist you’ve saved in your library.
What sets Record Bird apart from any similar tool or streaming service I’ve tried is the My Feed page. After performing an initial scan – a process similar to Songkick – you’ll see every artist the app has matched under your profile. This is done with a native scan of your Apple Music library through iOS permissions, or by authenticating with your Spotify account in the settings. Like other modern music apps, Record Bird assembles a list of your favorite artists by scanning what you’ve saved in your library.
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For the past couple of months, I’ve been using Record Bird, a free iPhone app hailing from Austria, to check on updates from my favorite artists every day, stream songs, watch videos, and even read related stories. Apple Music Connect is an afterthought it’s also been regarded as such by Apple itself with the removal of the dedicated page in iOS 10.įortunately, there are still people who understand what a music lover with a broad range of preferences wants from a tool designed to discover new music. After an initial spur of song previews and photos published on Connect, Apple Music’s network has mostly turned into a ghost town of sporadic updates, often automatically cross-posted to other networks (without any exclusivity), with hashtags that can’t be tapped and shortened links that open Safari webpages after multiple redirects. In comparing the treatment of new music releases among different services, I realized that this is largely what Apple had set out to solve with Connect in Apple Music: a way to follow all your favorite artists and view updates for their announcements – whether they were new songs, video clips, tour dates, or photos.Īpple Music Connect, however, has faltered due to Apple’s inability to scale a music-centric network ( twice) and because it was predicated on a commitment from artists – both superstars and smaller acts – to post regular updates on their Connect feeds. Other Spotify features are similarly focused on highlights. Spotify can send emails for new release highlights, but those are only a subset of new releases from your favorite artists – usually, only the most popular ones.
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Spotify, on the other hand, has invested heavily on algorithmic and serendipitous discovery of songs, but it still hasn’t quite figured out how to display every new release from every artist you care about. Unlike the modern equivalents in Spotify and Apple Music, I remember Rdio’s New Releases page 1 offered a more balanced, heterogeneous mix of new songs. Rdio (forever in our hearts) had a solid New Releases section featuring a mix of variegate editorial picks culled from a variety of genres, labels, and trends. I’ve tried all of the major streaming services since 2009, and only two of them have gotten close to my ideal implementation of “Here’s everything artists you already know have released or are about to release”. After nearly eight years of streaming music every day, I’ve realized that the problem lies on the two ends of the New Releases spectrum: these days, services either prioritize front page curation skewed towards new pop, R&B/hip-hop, or EDM tracks (the most popular and lucrative genres), or they algorithmically suggest new releases for artists I may like, but which I’m not necessarily familiar with. When it comes to keeping track of new music releases from my favorite artists, streaming services have always been a disappointment.
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