There are a variety of iOS apps that will enable you to discover new music through friend recommendations or tracks that you or your friends have downloaded. The problem is, it doesn’t always find music that sound like your favourite artists.
Discovr is a gorgeous music app that brings users a new way to discover bands and artists through the use of interactive maps.
To discover new music, users simply input a band or artist name which generates an interactive graph that displays similar musicians. It’s presented in an interesting way by placing the recommendations in bubbles that surround the artist that was searched. By tapping on any of the similar sounding artists, the artist map will continue to grow, creating more clusters around each selection.
It’s not just about discovery. Users are able to listen to tracks, watch videos and learn more about the artists they’ve found. To learn more about an artist, just double tap on the musician from the map to gain access to biographies, music videos, playable songs, reviews and related links and articles about the music.
The artist pages are beautiful and provide users with a great deal of information about each artist. Discovr sports a built-in browser so browsing related articles about the music happens within the app without the need to exit the screen. Artist pages can be saved to a favourites folder and shared with friends via Facebook, Twitter or email.
Should you want to share or buy an individual track found within an artist page, Discovr also includes a direct link to purchase songs via iTunes and an option to share the song with email, Twitter and Facebook.
The Australian-based startup behind the app tells us that Discovr for iPad has taken the number one spot for music apps in 12 countries including Japan and Austrailia. The company also recently released an iPhone version of the app during SXSW.
Dave McKinney, the CEO of Jammbox and former UK Top 40 musician told us he quit his job as a tropical marine biologist to pursue his app company located in Perth. The company which only consists of McKinney and two part-time developers hasn’t spent a dime on PR or marketing and recently won the 2011 MIDEMnet startup competition in Cannes, France.
The Bottom Line:
The visual representation of “similar artists” within the interactive maps is clever and it’s a fun way to find new music based on your favourite bands. Discovr is available for the iPad and iPhone in Apple’s app store for $0.99.
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