Our weekly look at the hottest new music apps available for your mobile devices…
Songkick Concerts
The app scans the music stored in users’ iPhones and cross references it to its database of 100,000 concert listings worldwide to create a personalized local concert calendar for when those artists are performing in town. It issues alerts when new concerts are announced, and lets users browse all listings by location and alert friends when they make concert plans.
Gowalla and Owl City
Owl City has tapped location check-in app Gowalla to help run a promotion around the new album “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Fans who use the app to check into various locations selected by Owl City during the release week of the new album will get access to exclusive content and other rewards. Locations include record stores that sell the album (for a “Superfan” pin) or an Owl City performance (to be eligible for a VIP concert as well as merch credits).
Avid Scorch
A sheet music app for the iPad that lets users by the sheet music for up to 150,000 songs and display it on the table computer. All are interactive, allowing users to switch notations between instruments, hear the music played back to them, and pause, speed, or slow down the scrolling notations.
Echo Nest Facebook App Contest
The Echo Nest is not satisfied with the music apps being made for Facebook. So it’s challenged its developer community to create something better, and is offering a $10,000 prize to the developer that does so. The company has added Facebook’s apps into its Rosetta Stone system, which is basically a translator for Music IDs that allow developers to tap into various types of other services, which also includes Rdio and 7digital. Using both the Rosetta Stone and the Echo Nest’s API, developers can draw on multiple tools to create apps that now include Facebook links and “likes.” The contest will run through Aug. 10.