Musicians try out a Danish music app that has recently launched in India

A Danish music app called Moodagent has just launched in India. Four musicians gave it a go, to see how it matches up to the competition

Feeding the need

Akash Chanda, 34, guitarist
I found the app to be interesting because of the kinds of things you can do with it, in terms of selecting the mood that you want and the suggestions it gives in turn. The algorithm is quite cool and new that way, and one I haven’t used before. The layout is a little confusing at the start, but then you do get used to it as you go along. I also like the feed. I don’t know if the algorithm catches your taste in music and then gives you the feed  accordingly — that would be really cool. The downside is that I couldn’t find a lot of indie artistes, including popular international indie musicians. All the commercial musicians are there. But, all in all, it’s quite nice and I enjoyed checking it out. The sound quality on the app was awesome.

The app’s interface reflects the five moods users can choose

Information is key

Soutrik Chakraborty, 30, guitarist and producer
Overall, I felt that the app starts off in a way that’s similar to Spotify, in terms of choosing the kind of artistes that you like. But its AI is not as well-equipped as Spotify’s is, because in Spotify, when you choose one artiste, it immediately shows you the next round of musicians you might like based on your choice. In that sense, it quickly zeroes in on your tastes, which this app doesn’t do. Apart from that, the good part about the app is that it has five scrollers that decide what the music will be like, which is nice. If you put in more than three songs, you get the right playlist. But, if you put in just the one song that you are in the mood for, it doesn’t work. You have to give the app a lot of information for it to give you the playlist you are actually looking for.

Playing along

Tico hinaki, 40, vocalist
Since I am Japanese, whenever I access a music-streaming app, the first thing I do is look for music from my homeland. Unfortunately, I didn’t find my favourite artistes from there on this app. However, I was happy to find another one of my favourite musicians — Lily Allen. That was nice. But then, when I searched for her name, the app threw up a playlist based on her music instead of one comprising her songs. That threw me off a little. Yes, there is the joy of discovery, which is something we all love in music. But here, if the app has been asked to search for a particular artiste, I guess the implicit expectation is that you want to hear songs from that artiste. That said, I found the app’s layout pleasing. The  colours are nice, and the overall feel seems to be smooth.

The search goes on

Sarat Rao, 38, keyboardist
I like the layout of the app and the colour scheme — it’s pleasing and simple. However, the search function is not robust and powerful. When I looked for Beatles, I got Sex Beatles and some other Beatles, which was strange. I tried looking for different genres but didn’t get comprehensive playlists. For example, when I looked for Miles Davis, there was one Miles Davis song. It didn’t seem like there was a lot. Even when I typed Mozart, the first result I got was Mozart La Para, and the second was Mozart’s Symphony No 38. But the settings function on top — the five dials that allow you to change various aspects of the music that you want — is a pretty new approach, which will help people to discover a lot of new music.

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