In an increasingly digital world and an ongoing global pandemic, music lovers are chomping at the bit to share new music and timeless classics with friends and family and attend concerts together. Music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music have taken a backseat on social features so the music community has decided to look elsewhere for their social fix. In the past few years, a couple new apps have popped up and have begun to fill the music sharing void. In true Beatmatch fashion, we’ve done the digging for you. Take a look at our list of the 3 best apps for music sharing:

1. Cymbal (R.I.P)

Cymbal was a social network for sharing music started by a couple students from Tufts University which grew to over 150,000 users. Much like sharing photos on Instagram, users could post songs to their profile and build up a catalog of their favorite music from streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music and SoundCloud. Unfortunately in June 2018, Cymbal shut down for good leaving thousands of music lovers left without a creative outlet for sharing their top tunes. Cymbal provided the typical social network necessities such as following other users, hashtags and the main feed. However, Cymbal really changed the game with its Top Songs and Trophy features.

The Top Songs list showed the most voted up tracks from the Cymbal community which essentially gave users a better version of the Billboard Top 100 that came straight from music lovers themselves. This was super helpful for getting a quick glance at what’s trending in the music scene. The Trophy feature gave real music lovers the chance to finally gloat for being the first to discover new music. A trophy was awarded to the user who was the first to post a particular song on the app. This little bit of gamification was definitely something to brag about to your friends and enticed people to keep coming back to the app. We miss Cymbal and we know the rest of the music community does too. While the app is no longer with us, there may still be some hope from the rest of this list.

2. EarBuds

EarBuds is definitely the outlier on this list. The app takes a different approach to sharing music by enabling users to essentially become their own radio DJ. Users can manually queue up a list of songs to play or choose a playlist and “go live” to show off their unique music taste to friends and family.

EarBuds was founded by Jason Fox, a former NFL player, so it’s primarily pitched as a way to listen along with your favorite athletes. It will be interesting to see if EarBuds stays focused on athletes or goes after the broader music community. Music lovers love to share music so the chance to do it live without needing to be a DJ sounds pretty tempting. The app has a sleek vibrant design and deep integrations with Spotify and Apple Music that make it worth trying.

3. bopdrop

bopdrop, or as we like to call it “Cymbal’s little brother”, is a new music sharing service built on the same Instagram-esque principles. The app rose in popularity from a wildly successful TikTok video which lets you know the pandemic times we’re currently living in. bopdrop has good promise seeing as it has a minimum of 45,000 users based on the number of people following the company’s @bopdrop profile.

One thing that stands out is the emphasis on messaging. bopdrop users have the ability to send songs to one another and engage in conversation through music. We’ll see if the company decides to double down on the messaging platform with more features for music lovers.

Have you tried any of these apps? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

[BONUS] Beatmatch | The offline social app for music lovers

Beatmatch is the offline social app helping music lovers find things to do and people to meet through IRL music experiences! Music is a huge part of your social identity. Everything from what you believe, to the way you dress, to how you feel is influenced by the type of music you listen to. With Beatmatch, you can browse upcoming concerts, parties, and music festivals, connect with people going, and make plans together! To get started, download the app now!