22Tracks: New Music, The Easy Way

22Tracks is a new site for finding the hottest new music. You gain access to 22 playlists from varying genres. Each playlist contains 22 tracks of hot fire hand-picked by specialized DJ’s from Amsterdam. Not only are these guys good at picking out good music, but the site’s interface is clean and smooth. 22Tracks not only keeps you up on the latest musical trends, but also promote new artists and helps you broaden your horizons a little. All this and you don’t even have to login to enjoy the music.

One of the first things you will see when you visit the site is the media player at the top. This small set of controls lets you navigate through the current playlist just as you would expect. It shows you what you’re currently playing and also provides a Shuffle option. Under the player are the genres you have to choose from. Clicking any genre will bring you to a new playlist containing 22 tracks to listen to.

Feel free to click on tracks individually to play them. On the right of each track, you’ll see small icons to share the track on Twitter, visit the artist’s home page, or buy the song directly from iTunes. To the right of each playlist is a photo and short bio of the DJ who created the playlist.

Like I said, you don’t have to login to listen to the music on 22Tracks, but there is a major benefit to creating an account: Customized playlist. On the bottom of the page is a link to MY22. Once you’ve signed up and validated your account, you’ll have the ability to create a playlist of up to 22 tracks of your choosing. Simply click the little heart icon next to any track on any playlist to add it to yours.

Just by the simple fact that these tracks have been selected by some of the top DJ’s in the world is reason enough to give 22Tracks a visit. It still has that new app smell, though. The My22 feature has only been active for about 2 weeks and editing your playlist is a little sluggish if only because of the fancy Flash animations involved. I also ran into a bug where the site kept switching playlists/tracks every second as if it was possessed, but a Shift+Reload stopped the madness.

Sure, there are other ways to find new music, but sites like 22Tracks and CurrentHipHop make it simple by providing authoritative filters on what’s coming at us and simple is powerful in a world where we are struggling to keep up with all the information available.

About the Author
Rahsheen has been a certified geek since before it was the thing to do. He started programming and tinkering in the 4th grade. Now, Rahsheen mostly writes on various sites about technology trends in social media and mobile. . He is also a musician, singer, rapper, writer, and producer. @rahsheen - +Rahsheen Porter - coachrah.com
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