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Review: AmplifiedJourney.hk - Music while you drive
There are many websites helping us help travellers plan our routes, but now there's one that will not only plan your route but will provide you with a tailored (to your favourite genre) music playlist.
New UK-based website Amplified Journeys* does just that, promising us travellers a playlist of location-inspired music (our favourite genre) to listen to during our driving trips.
Amplified Journeys, now in beta 1.0 and is free to use. All you have to do is enter your starting point and destination, along with an artist or the musical genre or mood you're interested in. Amplified Journeys then puts together a set of detailed driving directions with an accompanying playlist including tracks inspired by landmarks and artists from points along the way.
So I gave it a try.
For my driving journey from London to Paris, I chose hip hop, and an upbeat mood. In just under two minutes, I received a playlist that included music by Cyndi Lauper (Higher Plane), Bananarama (I Love the Way) and Björk (Pagan Poetry).
Now I am not a music aficionado but I know enough to know that those tracks are far from being in the Hip Hop genre. Apparently, if the database can't find enough songs to match your request, it will fill your playlist with pop songs. In fact of the 77 songs listed, eight (e.g Gwen Stefani, Grace Jones and George Michael) were artists I had heard of and I couldn't tell if any were indeed Hip Hop.
But, although the inclusion of pop songs, was annoying, I wasn't put off, as I thought if they are promoting new artists I am happy to join in, provided I can listen to a bit (as is the case on many music websites). Unfortunately you can't. Aside from the bad selection, you have to pay to listen or download the songs on iTunes (but only if it is held in the iTunes store).
Disappointed! After all I was promised, 'a playlist created to match my journey, with music that relates to my route. Discovering new music, artists and trivia'. But instead of delivering something relevant and quick, the music selected and the fact I couldn't listen before purchase, leaves this website off of my favourite bookmarks.
Now, the only mitigating factor, is that the Amplified Journey is in it's testing phase, so I'm not saying avoid it all together, but rather watch their web space.
*Source of idea: Springwise.com
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