Nokia has launched a music service aimed at helping music fans stay up to date with new trends and discover new artists.
The service, Music Recommenders, involves 40 leading independent music stores from around the world creating unique and customisable music recommendations. Every month, experts from each of the stores will bring together music from their specialist genre, including pop, rock, classical, jazz and electronic.
David Bowie is the high-profile figurehead of the new service. He will be contributing to Music Recommenders every month through features and podcasts, sharing new music as well as appearing in a short film, shot by Wim Wenders, which advocates new music and the culture of record stores around the world.
Users can browse the music, search for music according to recommender, genre or style, listen to music clips and read weekly updates, artist interviews, city music guides and information on the stores and recommenders themselves. Once registered, subscribers can receive an instant playlist of 30-second samples tailored specifically to their tastes and purchase the tracks they like. Once a month, users will receive the latest recommendations and editorial features direct to their email inbox.
“Music Recommenders helps navigate the undiscovered music that is out there. I’ve actually been to some of the stores featured on Music Recommenders in various parts of the world and found them to be a wonderful source for new and less traditional music,” commented Bowie.
The service indicates Nokia’s commitment to providing multimedia handsets as opposed to just traditional mobile phones. Today the company launched a new series of music handsets. Spearheading the series, the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic can hold up to 1,500 tracks, the company said, and has dedicated music keys to control ease of playback.
By Niall Byrne
