MUSIC: The free subscription service A Song A Day delivers a handpicked song to users’ inboxes daily based on their music preferences.
By Ashley Gore, Editor
So much music, so little time.
With millions of songs floating around the Internet, people find the task of music discovery so daunting and draining they end up playing the same old “Favorites” playlist on repeat until their iPhones die of exhaustion and boredom. It leaves audiophiles wishing they had that one friend, that one music mentor, who intrinsically knows what to recommend.
A Song A Day is that friend. And that is exactly what its creator, who simply goes by Shannon B., intended. She dubs the daily service a “personal music concierge [and] your friend to suggest that one song that we think you’ll like (almost) every day.”
Anyone with an ear and an email address can subscribe. After typing out some basic personal information, the website prompts the almost-user to input his or her music preferences. (Shannon B. gratefully understands the difference between songs we like and songs we love.)
From there, the user’s information lands in the hands of a volunteer music quasi-expert called a “curator.” These generous souls are responsible for choosing songs to deliver to subscribers, who are grouped together based on those preferences they inputted while signing up. This is a key ingredient of A Song A Day’s brilliance, and Shannon B. has embraced it to the fullest. The phrase “curated by humans, not robots” is a staple of the company’s mission, and in her article “How Product Hunt Transformed asongaday.co from an Email to Friends Into a Startup in 3 Hours,” she expresses that “there’s nothing more important to [her] than keeping the human touch in this project.”
Shannon B.’s passion for spreading hidden musical gems to the masses is infectious. Through the simple, ingenious premise that gives the company its name, A Song A Day has successfully grown into a large community of busy music lovers ready to resurrect their playlists.
The bottom line? A Song A Day is a hit. And those of us who are “too busy” to discover new music are eternally grateful.