Upon opening GrooveBug, it presents you with a listing of the music you have stored on your iPad. All of the artists are listed there alphabetically. You can click on one of these artists, or click random if you’re not sure what you’re in the mood for. Also on this home page are several unique music genres. Rock, pop, classical, etc., aren’t there. What is there are categories such as Chicago Blues, Acid Rock, and Bossa Nova. You couldn’t ask for a more eclectic mix. This is content that GrooveBug is featuring, and just in case you aren’t sure if you would enjoy a certain genre, they provide you with a percentage explaining how much of the music stored on your iPad fits nicely into the category.
Believe it or not, 1.3% of my music falls under the Bossa Nova category. I’m not sure how, but I suspect a movie soundtrack is the culprit. Clicking on this category takes me to a page explaining what Bossa Nova music is and showing me several artists that fall within it.
If you click on an artist that is listed in one of the provided musical genres, or if you click on an artist from the list of music stored on your iPad, it takes you to a bio page giving you a quick intro to this artist. While you read, pictures of the artist are being streamed behind the information. These pictures are large and fill the entire background. Clicking on the Info in the bottom left corner gives the Image Attribution. If you click the link to read more about the artist, it shows you the Wikipedia page.
The next page shows all the music the artist has recorded that’s available on iTunes, allowing you to listen to a forty-second sample, and linking to iTunes to download it if you choose. It reads much like a complete discography. If you click on a song you already have stored on your iPad, you can listen to the full song. Those same great images continue to play behind the music listing. On the following page is a listing of YouTube videos of the artist performing. Clicking on these videos opens up the video within the app, and gives you the option of viewing it in the YouTube app or sharing it.
The next page shows all of the most recent news stories of that artist. Clicking to read more opens up the news story within the app, with these stories coming from a variety of Internet sources. Moving ahead to the last page offers a page of artists whose music is similar. What makes this page interesting, though, is the graphics. Pictures of the similar artists are displayed on an old-style record album, and as you scroll through the listing, it spins the album to show you the corresponding pictures.
GrooveBug is almost worth it just to see these amazing graphics, but what ultimately makes it worth it is the great content, both in the new artists you can find in the eclectic genres, and the bios, pictures, and news of the artists you’re already listening to, but perhaps don’t know enough about. The best part of all is that it’s a free app, costing only your time in downloading. GrooveBug
