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Apps Could Be Key for Album’s Successes

For those of you that missed the Amsterdam Dance Event earlier this month, and for those of you like us who’ve never heard of it before, a man you’ve probably never heard of before has been heralded as one of the best speakers at the show and perhaps one of the best proponents for apps as the next generation of music engagement.

Scott Snibbe, the digital artist who worked with Bjork on the Biophilia iOS app, gave a keynote that said using apps as a whole new type of medium for music should become the default mode for artists and labels.

“This isn’t an add-on to the audio album. The album was conceived as this fully interactive project, and this is the strongest expression of it,” Snibbe said speaking of the Biophilia app. Snibbe suggested that this and other similar apps can bring back “the falling in love stage with the music” that most leaders in the music industry associate with listening to vinyl albums as new owners delved deep into album art, booklets and liner notes.

“An app can demand all of your senses and attention at once,” Snibbe continued. “That is something exciting for musicians. A lot of them lament the demise of the album experience due to digital distribution, but one thing about the app-album is it reclaims people’s attention for an entire album.”

While vinyl sales are on the rise — they’re the only rising physical format in the US and some other countries — apps may just be the vinyl experience for the current younger generations.

MTV Launches Live & Local Music App

MTV has unleashed its latest music app called MTV Live & Local that aims to be the “ultimate mobile app to navigate live music.” The app landed first on Android devices but an iOS app is in the works. The app came from a pairing of MTV with Superglued, a social location startup, and gives users a calendar of local shows with recommendations based on popularity and preferences.

Preferences are built from the app scanning the user’s iTunes library to build a “favorite artist library” and recommend content similar to this. There is also the option for a real-time feed of friends’ activities, profiles for artists and members, Foursquare check-ins and a section to post or browse photos of an event and tweets about it.

The app has emerged as a rival for the Songkick app that does virtually the same thing and has received a lot of acclaim this year, but the Songkick app has yet to make it to the Android platform.