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Music

You Can Now Hear What People Across the Globe Are Listening to in Real Time

Welcome to The Future!

Have you ever wondered what the fishermen in Shukenegi, Japan are listening to right now? How about the truck drivers in Fairbanks, Alaska or street-kids in Norway? Even if the thought has never crossed your mind, it should be right now.

Here in the United Kingdom we’re so comfortable with what we’re listening to, our friends are listening to, and what the radio is playing, that it can be easy to forget there are 195 other countries in the world with, assumedly, vastly different music tastes to ours. We like electronic music featuring bland singer-songwriters; people in Russia like dubstep made by clowns and dwarves.

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In the past, the only way to find out what people are listening to in real time would be booking a flight, spending hundreds of pounds, and sitting in a café for several hours. But that’s the past and this is the future. You Need To Hear This have just launched a new app called MusicMap that, essentially, allows you to hear what people around the globe are listening to.

This is great - we can finally answer age old questions like Britain having a better taste in music than America. With that in mind I putted together London and New York to see who likes the best music.

The app is really simple - all you need to do is type an address, postcode, or city, and MusicMap responds by playing a track that is currently being played in that location. I used the postcode I am currently in and a track by Bob Moses infiltrated my headphones. This is that track:

In comparison, the first track that played in New York was some sub-par trap released by a guy called FBG Duck:

But I couldn't trust one selection. I decided to continue playing songs in both New York and London, attempting to work out which city has the best taste in music. Once I learnt to ignore the more dubious choices (Tallest Man on Earth, Van Morrison, etc) London won. But in case you need confirmation of our city's excellent music taste here's a selection of things people in London and New York have been listening to this morning.

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London

A lot of dancehall, down-beat electro, and R'n'B was played across London this morning, a guy in Homerton was listening to a podcast about magnesium extraction, and someone played Kelly Rowland's "Stole" on repeat.

New York

It's cool that people in New York love Future, Drake, and Rich Homie Quan but they ruined the chance to beat London by listening to really terrible Jane's Addiction remixes.

You can download the app for free from the App Store.