Beyond the Thumbnail
Azalea Vaseghi
If asked to think about the most iconic albums, many people recall the images that graced their covers before they remember the music contained within them. Though it is hard to imagine album art as having ever had more presence than a thumbnail-sized image on a screen, there was a time when it was an integral part of how a listener experienced music. The world has changed drastically since then, transforming the way we interact with music. Information is more readily available than ever before, and with every outlet fighting for attention, we’re forced to divide our time in an effort to keep up. Unfortunately, along the way, music has become a backdrop to whatever other activity the listener happens to be engaged in, whether it be walking in the street or browsing on a phone. Gone are the days when listening to music meant putting on an album and sitting in a room by yourself or with a few others, flipping through liner notes and dissecting the deeper meaning behind the album’s artwork and its relation to the music. The Muse app seeks to reintroduce the experience of listening to music the way it was meant to be experienced to a new generation of listeners without forcing them to adopt new patterns of behavior. It allows them to combine the experience of listening to music and browsing the phone into one cohesive activity