22tracks is all about curating. It’s a jukebox consisting of 22 playlists of different genres. Each playlist is filled with 22 tracks selected by specialized DJ’s from Amsterdam, Brussels, London and Paris. The playlists are refreshed throughout the week with new tracks added at the top and older tracks deleted at the bottom. In this way 22tracks quickly overviews the latest music, promotes new artists and lets you discover new genres. Ranging from hip hop to deep house to tropical, this musical discovery service is the perfect guide in a crowded musical landscape to discover new tracks, promote new artists and explore new genres – with each DJ bringing his or her own flavor to the table, and every city its own unique musical vibe.
Vincent Reinders and Gilles de Smit founded 22tracks on the 22nd of October 2009. “We solve a major problem: what should I listen to now?” says Reinders. “For most people this can be an ongoing daily quest. Especially nowadays, with catalogues of more than 20 million songs available, the demand for curation and music discovery is higher than ever. I think 2014 will be a great year for us to grow and introduce more people to curated music.”
That’s why 22tracks and Internet Explorer have teamed up, and set out to bring you the best of music, design and technology in a cutting edge, app-like online music experience. Not just to suite current possibilities and needs, but to exceed them.
The rethought and responsive 22tracks is fully optimized for touch browsing, providing for a fast and fluid web experience. It’s built around a revamped playlist design and ‘the disc’: a music control panel that lets you easily play, pause and scrub through the track or playlist with a flick of the finger.
image source: 22tracks.com
The new 22tracks is a collaboration with Vincent and Gilles to combine the best of music, design, and HTML5 web standard technology together. With more users than ever before visiting on touch-optimized mobile devices, we knew we needed a site that was more than search, play, and share. The new experience adapts responsively to a wide range of devices. You can easily switch between a disc-view with controls and a playlist-view. A new audio visualizer runs in the background using 2D WebGL that continuously adapts to the rhythm of the music and your touch interactions.
We also made it easy for music lovers to share the tracks they like by using the Windows 8 Charm Bar. They can also save a track for later with the Reading List. Can’t stop listening to that one new favorite song? Easily download it from a wide variety of music stores, including Xbox Music.
From the very start, we’ve been on a mission to rethink the way you experience music online. The technological landscape is moving forward fast, and it gives us the opportunity to continually reinvent ourselves. Just the way we like it.
