Is there a good app for discover new music?
Poorly Executed: 20 apps already serve this, and 16 data points mined from real user reviews show where they fall short. The right features exist but the execution is buggy, dated, or painful. Out-execute it.
Data refreshed September 7, 2026 · scores recompute weekly as new reviews are mined, so re-check before you build.
Y Combinator names music discovery as a classic 'tarpit': lots of founders try it, users love the demo and never come back. You can build on Spotify's data, but in Nov 2024 Spotify restricted its recommendation and audio-analysis endpoints for new apps — the exact data a discovery tool needs. Possible, but go in with eyes open.
The way in: Recommendation/analysis tools on Spotify's API — but the endpoints you'd need are now restricted for new apps.
Moat: the licensed catalog is the product · platform risk: high · why: YC lists music discovery as a classic tarpit · Spotify restricted recommendations/audio-features for new apps Nov 2024
What users complain about
The most common complaints behind apps that try to discover new music, mined and clustered from real reviews:
| Complaint area | Type | Mentions | What a user said |
|---|---|---|---|
| hard to discover new music | missing-feature | 2 | it's so hard to find good new music with Spotify |
| poor new music discovery / recommendations | other | 1 | New music that is a genre i like is almost near impossible to find |
| can't identify new music | reliability | 1 | Hasn’t been able to identify new songs for a couple years now |
| new song discovery | reliability | 1 | new songs that are out today can't be found |
| song and album discovery | missing-feature | 1 | Could be better with finding songs and albums |
| music variety and discovery | missing-feature | 1 | wish the app was better at mixing in new music and playing better variety |
| can't detect new songs | reliability | 1 | Now it no longer detects any new songs |
| can't recognize new music | reliability | 1 | it doesn’t recognize hardly any new music |
| can't find desired music | missing-feature | 1 | I can’t find any music I want |
| music variety in recommendations | missing-feature | 1 | play more of a variety of my music |
| new releases missing from new music tab | bug | 1 | all new albums don’t show in the new releases tab |
| cannot identify recent popular songs | reliability | 1 | One week after a popular song... Soundhound is not able to identify it |
Apps that already serve this
| App | Rating | Ratings | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pandora: Music & Podcasts | 4.8 | 11,305,104 | Free |
| YouTube Music | 4.8 | 1,515,215 | Free |
| Spotify: Music and Podcasts | 4.8 | 42,070,029 | Free |
| SoundCloud: The Music You Love | 4.8 | 2,001,345 | Free |
| Free Music - Music APP, Offline Music | 4.4 | 5,510 | Free |
| SoundHound - Music Discovery | 3.7 | 918,982 | Free |
| SoundHound ∞ - Music Discovery | 1.4 | 41,367 | $5.99 |
| Trending Music Player | 4.6 | 308,512 | Free |
Should you build it?
The right features exist but the execution is buggy, dated, or painful. Out-execute it. Opportunity here scores 35 out of 100 — a function of demand, how crowded the field is, and how badly the existing apps perform. Use the live map to compare it against adjacent tasks.
Who has tried building this
5 attempts, 4 already stale despite 53–171 stars; recurring interest that consistently dies—a tough sustainability problem.
| Project | Status | Stars | Stack |
|---|---|---|---|
| MrRobotoGit/DiscoveryLastFM | active | 171 | Python |
| karan/SoundWall | stale | 78 | JavaScript |
| Datlyfe/tuneIn | stale | 66 | Vue |
| rtkg12/remixr | stale | 62 | JavaScript |
| mielophone/Mielophone-AIR | stale | 53 | ActionScript |
Open-source projects that attempted this task — active ones show today's bar; abandoned ones are a signal to validate why earlier attempts died.
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