MusicUK

A music messaging app that enables people to communicate with song clips launched on Thursday in a bid to capitalise on the growing popularity of messaging apps and throw a lifeline to the struggling music industry.

MSTY, an acronym for My Song To You, allows users to send each other 30-second segments of songs, from Happy Birthday to the latest chart-topper, combined with a photo and text.

The UK-based company has launched the app in 155 countries with a catalogue of 2,000 song clips, cut down to the most meaningful 30 seconds by humans rather than the computer algorithms that create previews on services such as iTunes. The songs are curated into playlists by mood or genre such as flirt, celebrate, sport, pop hits and seventies music.

It claims to be the first dedicated legal music messaging app.

"It's absolutely bonkers that this does not already exist," said founder and CEO Grant Bovey, who previously started and ran Imagine Homes, the prominent buy-to-let property company that went bust in 2009.

"People have always utilised music in a very powerful way, from film and television to advertising. Why can't you send that emotion in a message? It seems very obvious."

A handful of similar messaging apps do exist – such as La-La (which sends whole songs, not clips with pictures and words) and Rithm (which charges users for certain functions) – but MSTY is one of the few that combines images and text with human-curated short music clips that are legally sourced directly from the record labels.


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