Streaming platform Rhapsody doesn’t just want people to hear music, the company wants to help its users experience music unlike many of them have ever before.
The company has announced a new app that’s all about virtual reality and music, which aims to immerse listeners in a live setting as they listen along and watch. The idea is that you can practically be on stage with a band while they play, without working for years in the music industry or winning a contest. Rhapsody revealed the new product at Google’s I/O event on Thursday, where plenty of companies were vying for attention.
The experience works best with some kind of VR viewer, and Rhapsody suggests using the Google Cardboard option that’s on the market now, though there are still some semi-interesting videos to watch for those without any VR equipment.
At launch, the amount of content available does seem light, and it is very noticeably missing any truly big names. A blog post shared by Rhapsody touts videos from artists like Talib Kweli, Flatbush Zombies, The Blind Shake, and Eli “Paperboy” Reed, most or all of whom have never broken into the mainstream in a major way. If the streaming platform wants to attract many users and keep them coming back, it’s going to need to collect more clips from some very well-known performers. Rhapsody did say that new content would be added monthly, but that might not be enough for the avid VR music fan...of which there are few at this point.
The company is using the tagline, “The first virtual reality app from the first music streaming service,” and that’s not wrong. While it might not be the biggest player in the game, Rhapsody is the oldest true streaming service, at least in the sense that word is used today. The company has been in business for 14 years, though in that time, it has only managed to collect around 3.5 million paying subscribers as of this past winter. That’s about one-tenth what a competitor like Spotify claims, for perspective. It is only a matter of time before some of the other streaming services jump into the VR space, but as of now, Rhapsody seems to have at least a small head start compared to many of them.
Virtual reality has been a hot topic lately in the music industry, but this is one of the first developments from a major streaming platform to arrive. The technology is being touted as the next big thing in the business, and many are convinced that fans will eat this kind of content up, but that might be years off, as there are still plenty of hurdles to jump before a mass audience can really appreciate and enjoy VR.
