Hello, everyone. My name is しょごみ, and at FTZrecords I mainly write columns and select music for playlists.

This time, I will be writing about an app called Chooning, so I hope you will join me.


CONTENTS

• What is “Chooning”?

• What I personally find impressive

• Features I would like to see in the future

• What is planned for the app


What is “Chooning”?


To begin with, Chooning is an app that anyone with Spotify can use to pick a song they are listening to and share it with their thoughts and feelings about that song. This lets users strike up lively conversations about music they love.


A little more detail about what you can do:

● Post a song you heard on Spotify with up to 300 characters about your memories or other thoughts.

● Listen to songs other users have posted while reading the words they have added.

● Follow other users.

● Like songs you discover while browsing the app, and a playlist collecting them is created on Spotify so you can listen to them together.


As for the background to the app's development, one of its developers, イワモトユウ, says the name “Chooning” expresses a wish to retune our relationship with music, which has been growing more tenuous.



What I personally find impressive


■ Discovering new music

→ You can do this with any music service. Spotify, for instance, makes playlists of recommendations based on songs you have listened to. But in this app, people you have never met write about what each song means to them. One person might explain the song; another might add a warm personal story. Reading those words deepens your interest in the music and makes you want to listen even more.

I feel that this sense of raw human experience, in a good way, is a strength and an appeal that other apps do not have.

■ Remembering what a song means to you

→ When you become the person writing the feelings about a song that I described above, you start remembering things like how you first encountered it. I plan to post too. When I dig into memories of a song I want to share, both good and bad things come back, so the memories return whether I want them to or not. I do not think music streaming platforms on their own have really been able to offer this until now.


■ A place to connect through music

→ Until now, if I went to a concert and wanted to share my thoughts, Twitter's character limit got in the way. Writing a blog had its own hurdles in terms of quantity and quality, so I would hesitate to write. That was the situation.

But on Chooning, you can talk about the music you love however you like. I sometimes think that can also lead you to look back on how you have lived. It is lovely, too, that there are people who will properly read what you have written.


To say a little more, I felt it might change how we engage with songs. When you choose a song yourself and put your feelings or a personal story into words, I think it gives you another chance to face that song afresh.

Reading different people's posts, I experience all sorts of feelings: something touches me, I relate to it, or I smile to myself. I came to love this app because I felt there had never been a place for sharing music quite like this before.


Features I would like to see in the future


■ Artists and writers starting to use it

→ If an artist selects and posts a song, for example, we could feel a little closer to the kinds of exchanges we often see in magazines: “So that person likes this song,” or “This is where their roots lie.”

During the pandemic, there have been fewer opportunities for listeners and artists to connect. There is still a lot we do not know about how many of those opportunities will return this year. If this app can serve as a channel for that kind of connection, I think more people will use it and the range of things it can do will grow. That is my hope, but it also seems to be something the developer イワモト hopes for.

If writers used it, listeners and readers could learn which artists they are supporting right now and what they look for when searching for music. I think it could give people a feel for aspects they have rarely been able to encounter before.

I also think that could lead people to read their articles.


Continuing that thought about writers starting to post, I felt this could also be a good way to raise awareness of new artists or artists who are not yet well known. With streaming and the spread of clubhouse, music now reaches us from all kinds of places. Honestly, I cannot keep up with all the information myself...

In such a competitive environment, music spreading through a place that can build a new kind of community might lead to an explosive rise in recognition.


What is planned for the app


“Recently listened to” feed (scheduled for release in April 2021)

• “Trending” content (scheduled for release in April 2021)

• New search features (scheduled for release in April 2021)

• Personalized “recommended users” (released in March 2021)

• Language detection for posts (released in March 2021)

• Browser-based application (scheduled for release in June 2021)

These are being developed as new features.

Since its release in September 2020, the app passed 10,000 total posts and 3,000 registered users in March this year. The proportion of overseas users is reportedly increasing too, showing demand in overseas markets.

I think the app will continue to attract more users and follow its own path as a social network dedicated to music. I hope it will get more people interested in music and help create communities, connected through music, that are much deeper and stronger than those we have now.



This time, I have focused on Chooning.

I think we at FTZ records will be using it too, so please take a look.




Until next time.



しょごみ on Twitter: @syogoyabami

FTZ records on Twitter: @ftzrecords