On The Beach #2 - what is it?

In Building a Beach I explain that I'm building an app to help me keep on top of the music that I want to listen to as well as the music I have listened to. But how does it work?

Essentially On The Beach allows you to add music to your list by giving it a link. The link could be to a Digital Service Provider (DSP) EG. Apple Music. It will then parse the information and add an item to your list, like this:

This shows the release name, the artist, the list (To Listen) and a rating - if it has been given one.
You can also add links from Youtube, Mixcloud, Bandcamp or essentially any website that features music. For example these releases are from 3 different sources:

One of the problems the app is trying to solve is that my listening can't be boxed in to just one service - otherwise I could just use a DSP to track the music I want to listen to.

As mentioned in Building a Beach, I don't even want to be constrained to just digital music. I spend a lot of time in record shops where I'll often see music that I want to check out later, sometimes I'll write the name down or take a photo but this is what On The Beach is for so I wanted to make sure physical music is included too. You can also upload a photo of a record and it will add the details to your to listen list. It feels a bit like magic to me as it is something I've wanted for so long. Last time I looked, the Discogs app had a feature like this but their app is so horrible to use I deleted it about 5 years ago and never looked back.

So you can track the music you want to listen to and then you can rate it. You have two piles of music: to listen and listened. A release can only be in one. Listened to something and want to listen to it again? Back in 'to listen' it goes. In the future I plan to introduce a gremlin that will put a record back into your 'to listen' after a random period of time if you gave it a high enough rating. So often as music obsessives we are constantly hunting the new and forget to look back and appreciate what we've already heard.

The other feature On The Beach has is Stacks. Stacks are a way of tagging your music. A release can have one or more stacks. A stack could be a genre (EG your 'Jazz' stack or 'Chill' stack). A stack could be for music you own, or music you own on vinyl. But it could be anything. Stacks can belong to other stacks, why not have a stack of stacks. A stack could be a list of YouTube playlists you want to listen to or a stack of stacks you've listened to. You could have a stack for each record shop. Everyone will have their own way of dealing with stacks.

Over time you will build up a library of your music. It will be independent of the way that you listen to the music and, because of that, transferable. If you move from Spotify to Apple Music then it doesn't matter. If you have your records hundreds of miles away from you (like I do) then you can still check On The Beach. My goal for this is to be portable using something like ActivityPub or ATProto or even just taking your collection with you in JSON. What I want to avoid is for people being trapped into software that is built for the whims of companies like Discogs or Songtradr. I think that the music landscape is going to be increasingly fragmented and dynamic and I think we need software that unifies that landscape. On The Beach.