SomethingToDo2

In the old days, music charts were compiled by radio stations phoning record shops and finding out what they were selling. In the new days, music charts were compiled by counting the number of units a given song or album was selling through online outlets such as iTunes.

And then along came We Are Hunted.

This Australian innovation has become a worldwide cool internet thing by doing something different with the traditional idea of a music chart. It’s a great way to while away a few minutes, days, hours … how long have you got?

Not only is it beautiful to look at, but instead of merely counting units sold, it sends out its little electronic minions (bots) to find what music people are talking about on the net, what songs they are uploading to their websites, and what music they are electronically sharing with  friends.

It then crunches this data (via a proprietary algorithm — which I hereby christen the AlgorRhythm) and it comes up with a list of the top 99 songs that are wooing people in cyberspace.  These songs are then listed in order on their (beautiful) website and they are linked to artist information, YouTube clips, and the full panoply of social media so that you can listen to them at your leisure, save them for later, buy them, email them to your friends, or Tweet, Facebook or blog them.

The awesome thing about all this is that it is not a chart in the usual sense. Apart from all the fancy-schmancy social networking options, We Are Hunted’s key innovation is that it allows you to discover new music, not merely rank music you are already hearing.

Now, don’t be thrown by this. Don’t click through to the site and expect to use the search engine to find any song you want. This is not a streaming online radio station such as last.fm or a site such as Grooveshark where you can access just about any song you care to name. The whole idea is to collate songs people are actually listening to/talking about at any given moment and it is that process that makes available to you tracks you might not otherwise hear.

In addition, there is facility for you to create your own chart and to share that with your friends via the methods mentioned above. Each time you add a song, you can click a link and it will find “similar artists” for you.  Pretty soon you find yourself drilling down into a mesmerising body of artists and songs and you can easily waste an hour picking through your discoveries.

The whole thing was worth it for me for no other reason than that I discovered an American singer named Joni Davis. I’m very grateful to AlgoRhythm for the find.

If one of the joys of your life is finding new music, We Are Hunted is your killer app.