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So you may have heard the Beats Music Android and iOS app went live yesterday and as an
Android user I may have lucked out because many Android sign-ups had problems getting
started due to a larger than expected response. I signed up weeks ago for an account so that
may have made the difference for me. Anyway, the appearance of the branding and interface
when revealed a few weeks ago piqued my interest and convinced me to sign up for a trial. Honestly
though, I was not expecting much...Considering the overhype and underperformance of the fashionable
headphone line bearing the same name. Up till yesterday I had been trying to convince my
family and friends that Spotify was the only way to go as far as streaming music was concerned.
I like All Access and Rdio too, but what you can get from Spotify for free is hard to beat,
and still is. This is the thing. From the moment I got set
up and pressed play for the first time, my head was bobbing, I mean it was an involuntary
response to what I was hearing. Track after track, I felt like dancing! And anybody that
knows me will tell you...I don't dance...ever. I don't know if they have figured out the
perfect algorithm for music satisfaction or if I just happen to be the target demo that
they set out to appeal to in the first place. Whatever the case it was working for me. I
gave them my age, the genres I was into, one genre I was really into, and chose three artists
I liked out of a list they provided. Now this heightened my skepticism. I picked Jazz, alternative
and R&B as genres I liked then Hip-Hop as the genre I really liked. There was also the
option to tap and hold the genre you really hated. I don't really feel that way about
any genre so I went on to the next step. Here they presented a list of artists and I was
supposed to pick three I liked. Right away I noticed the only hiphop act I really liked
was Eric B & Rakim, and while I love them, I'm not sure if they were the best reflection
of my favorite in hiphop. So I clicked Eric B, then went on to choose
Bob James and Chick Corea. So this made me nervous because these were not the artists
I listen to the most or often even, they were just the best of the options provided. At
this point I'm convinced that like every other service's "radio" mode, they would play a
song by the artist I mentioned then try their best to pick something similar to play next.
So I tapped play and N.T.by Kool and the Gang comes on. I didn't even know the song by name,
but I recognized it immediately as it had been sampled many times by hiphop acts and
it was funky! Without realizing it what I had clicked onto was a playlist of joints
that sampled this song. What followed was an entree of album tracks from Nas, ATCQ,
NWA, Diamond D, and yes Eric B & Rakim. So from here I began to explore the interface
and I came across the curator section. Here I found playlists developed by magazines like
pitchfork and decibel, Stations like Hot 97 and KROQ, and a section called "friends of beats". I scrolled
through and saw lists like Mike Shinoda's Aggression mix, Bruce Springsteen's southern
soul favorites, Nas songs produced by dj premier, and fan lists like LeBron's workout mix or
Demi Lovato's Valentine's Day. Something for everybody. I picked Q-Tip's Rock Classics...If
you're not familiar, Q-Tip is responsible for the majority of the production on the
early records by the rap group, A Tribe Called Quest. So I pressed play and what did I hear?
Time of the Season by the Zombies, Lola by the Kinks,Baba O'Riley by the Who, Under My
Thumb by the Stones...there were more but, again these were songs I'd never heard...
but they were great....all of them. It was like chilling in the record store with one
of my favorite hiphop producers and getting a lesson on the dopest classic Rock. This
may have been my favorite part of the experience. Spotify has playlists made by famous people,
but I feel like maybe more thought and emotion have gone into these lists on Beats Music.
You'll have to judge for yourself.