Spotify Apps have only been available for less than a month, but I already have a favourite app: Soundrop. Although I am a big fan of the Last.fm app and the improved Spotify Radio (having already discovered several new artists through there – although some tracks pop up there a lot for some reason), I am spending most of Spotify listening habit on Soundrop. Because I’ve been waiting for Soundrop for over a year.

At my previous job we at some point started making “radio” on Spotify. I’d create a collaborative playlist and everyone in the office would subscribe. Then, we’d all add songs we like (or we thought were annoying, to annoy the others) and listen. Because you couldn’t vote for tracks or delete them (well you could delete them but it was against my rules), all tracks would get played. It was a bit like a radio station of your combined music taste.

Soundrop is a bit like that: you have a virtual room that you can join. Then, everyone is allowed to add tracks and you listen to it all. The only difference is that Soundrop DOES have a voting system. Thus, people have to decide whether they think the track you added is good before it actually gets played. Your track may end up in the bottom of the playlist with one vote. But if other people like your suggestion, they’ll vote for it and soon, your track will pop up. You can start your own room but you can also join a room with a certain theme (like Indie Wok).

The addictive part of this is – for me at least – that you have to listen to tracks you normally wouldn’t listen to. As I write this, I’m listening to Say Hi To Your Mom with Blah Blah Blah. Say Hi To Your Mom is one of those bands that I’ve heard of, but never listened to. Now, because other people vote for them, you HAVE listen to them (unless you leave Soundrop) and you might realise that you are missing out. Can you remember those times when you heard a new song on the radio and you fell in love with it? Yea, me neither, but it’s like that. And every now and then a song pops up that you love.

So that’s why you should try Soundrop. Because it broadens your musical horizon, peppered with tracks you already love. And it’s free as long as you have Spotify.

Which you have, right?

Right?