Bjork’s upcoming Biophilia is being touted as an “album app” that will contain periodically released, dedicated apps for each song.  In an interview with Evolver.fm, apps creator Scott Snibbe explains that the forward thinking innovation is actually a throwback to the days of vinyl.  [I]n some reviews of [the first two tracks released in] Biophilia, people said, “Wow, I haven’t had this experience in 20 years. Before CDs came out, I’d buy an album and hold the 12-inch cover in my hand, sitting cross-legged on the floor while I listened to the music, read the liner notes, and looked at the pictures.” People used to have this very tactile, multimedia experience when they bought an album. But with the digitization of music, we’ve lost that special moment. You can think of the app as, finally, that chance to unwrap the box and have a personal, intimate experience again with music. It might be the case that people spend a lot of time with the app when it first comes out [as they did with album covers] and then perhaps they’ll move on to purely enjoying the music after that. But we’ll really have to wait and see. Publishers take note: replace music and vinyl with news and print, and the music industry Bjork might be teaching us something. Image: art from the “Virus” song app.

Bjork’s upcoming Biophilia is being touted as an “album app” that will contain periodically released, dedicated apps for each song. 

In an interview with Evolver.fm, apps creator Scott Snibbe explains that the forward thinking innovation is actually a throwback to the days of vinyl. 

[I]n some reviews of [the first two tracks released in] Biophilia, people said, “Wow, I haven’t had this experience in 20 years. Before CDs came out, I’d buy an album and hold the 12-inch cover in my hand, sitting cross-legged on the floor while I listened to the music, read the liner notes, and looked at the pictures.” People used to have this very tactile, multimedia experience when they bought an album.

But with the digitization of music, we’ve lost that special moment. You can think of the app as, finally, that chance to unwrap the box and have a personal, intimate experience again with music. It might be the case that people spend a lot of time with the app when it first comes out [as they did with album covers] and then perhaps they’ll move on to purely enjoying the music after that. But we’ll really have to wait and see.

Publishers take note: replace music and vinyl with news and print, and the music industry Bjork might be teaching us something.

Image: art from the “Virus” song app.

82 notes

Show

  1. bethallens reblogged this from fastcompany
  2. 4autoinsurancequote reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  3. lukaszlata reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  4. gregcameron reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  5. perfectlylogicalparadox reblogged this from uncouthjellyfish and added:
    Above is Bjork’s art for “Virus”, from an app created for the song. She’s periodically releasing apps for each song on...
  6. atwas reblogged this from fastcompany and added:
    Innovation is not dead. Hurrah!
  7. shaneguiter reblogged this from futurejournalismproject
  8. uncouthjellyfish reblogged this from milwaukeestat and added:
    My blog was referenced in milwaukeestat’s post, how cool!
  9. milwaukeestat reblogged this from futurejournalismproject and added:
    This looks like something you’d find on uncouthjellyfish’s tumblr. futurejournalismproject:
  10. bamato1234 reblogged this from futurejournalismproject

Blog comments powered by Disqus