New apps allow music fans to interact with records

November 20, 2013 Leave a comment

New apps allow music fans to interact with records

12:04pm EST

By Natasha Baker

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Musicians in the digital age are turning to apps to woo fans and also engage them in the creative process to create new music and art. Apps featuring indie rock band Metric, pop sensation Lady Gaga and the late John Lennon were released last week that allow fans to re-mix tracks, create music-inspired art or access rare recordings.Toronto-based Metric’s new app, METRIC Synthetica, available on iOS devices, lets fans interact with music from the band’s new album using finger gestures to re-mix tunes and create their own music. Fans can toggle different instruments and speed up and slow down tracks, creating more of a conversation with the band.

“Music in the modern day is about a lot more than just the music itself,” said James Shaw, the lead singer of Metric and producer of the album.

“In the late 70s and 80s it was just about the record and that was it. But now it’s about being engaged in all sorts of different mediums,” he added.

Shaw said he is eager to hear the creations that others will make with his music.

“Our version will always be there. But now you can break a song down according to your own imagination and it brings depth and allows people’s imaginations to go into what the record is about and get a greater understanding of what they’re listening to,” he said.

The app is free and includes one song to re-mix. Each additional song costs 99 cents or $7.99 for 11 songs.

With Lady Gaga’s free app, ARTPOP, for iOS and Android, fans can create and share animated graphics and interact with each other. The app is a companion to Gaga’s latest album of the same name.

Another new app, John Lennon: The Bermuda Tapes, follows the former Beatle’s trip to Bermuda in 1980 to record his Double Fantasy album through audio and photographs. The app, which costs $4.99 and is available for iOS devices, features music and stories from Lennon and his widow, Yoko Ono.

Other apps released by artists include Rework, a collaboration between Philip Glass and American musician Beck, Beyonce Live at Roseland, both available on iOS and Android devices, and Bjork: Biophilia for iOS devices.

Filed under TMT Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

Leave a comment