Type the name of an artist you like and find your new favorite band with this music map of taste.

Find your new favorite novelists with this literature map, which allows you to see the writers that readers most closely associate with each other.

Band names often fit into 'semantic spaces'

Linguist Chi Luu explains that we often understand and identify with band names, even if they're odd (or nonsensical) word combinations, based on their associations with other words. For example, bands that begin with "The" often nod to 1960s garage rock; heavy metal bands often rely on morbid or funereal words.

Explore the niche music genres, including 'Spanish synthpop' and 'South Dakota indie,' that Spotify uses to tag its music.

Spotify's most-streamed albums to date

Interested in people's listening habits? Look through this up-to-date list to find out the most streamed albums on Spotify. See which musicians top the list by year, decade, or even all-time.

Explore a map of Prince's Minneapolis

Prince might be the most famous and influential musician from a city brimming with them. This interactive map from Prince's estate lets you explore the city's locales that shaped him, from early residences to concert halls and recording studios.

An interactive sound map of 8,000 locations around the world

Cities and Memory's global sound map covers 140 countries, featuring paired recordings: original field captures of a moment in time and an artist's recomposition built from the same source. The structure treats every location as both document and raw material, giving 2,500 contributors the same prompt with unpredictable results.

Search set lists from more than 10 million live concerts, added and edited by fans

Taking cues from Wikipedia, this Setlist wiki allows fans and concertgoers to share which songs were actually played at live concerts, across genres. The database makes this niche information about what performers choose to play year-round available for the curious.

Find your next book by prompting this AI

Have a general idea of the sort of book you'd like to read next, but don't know how to find a specific one? Try this fun and impressive tool. Describe the type of book you're looking for. It will suggest five options which attempt to meet your prompt. Find your next page-turner with this very cool tool.

How Spotify creates niche genres

One of Spotify's most recognizable features is its playlists. The provider offers an endless stream of strangely titled mixes with names like "Hyperpop," "Phonk," and "Lorem," which suggest uniform genres and scenes despite featuring seemingly random assortments of artists and songs. This article unpacks why Spotify organizes its music in this way and how, unintentionally, the process erases organic movements that developed outside of the app.

Listen to found cassette tapes from around the world

A growing catalog collects tapes discovered in Barcelona, New York, and other locations, featuring digitized audio for easy listening alongside any accompanying visuals or notes. Some audio fragments include voice memos and mixtapes as well.

Check out an interactive map of 250 American places worth visiting before you die.

Stream live radio from anywhere on Earth

Spin a 3D globe and tune into thousands of live radio stations by clicking any dot on the map. The project is seamless and acts as a reminder that somewhere, right now, someone is broadcasting music, news, or a call-in show in a language you've never heard.

Give your memories a place to live and explore the personal stories left by strangers, tied to specific locations, in this interactive map of the world.

Explore a map of global native lands

This interactive map visualizes Indigenous territories across the world. Users can search by location, language, or tribe to explore the histories, cultures, and present-day communities connected to specific lands.

Spotify and AncestryDNA launched a genetic music playlist offering

The playlist offering in 2018 purported to make a unique playlist based on cultural inheritance. The service required users to link their account, select the top five ethnic regions from their AncestryDNA results, and then Spotify would create the playlist based on that data.

Explore an interactive timeline of rock 'n' roll's origins in blues, swing, country, and other genres.

Type out a tone and play it back with this fun game

Compose an original piece of music from your phone or desktop with this simple, super fun interface: Just start typing, discover the various sounds associated with each key or letter, and then press play. Go back, tweak, delete, and revise to your...

Remove the tyranny of choice and quickly generate a movie suggestion with this site.

Your favorite music can minimize physical pain, according to a 2025 study on how music can bring solace and address pain.

A collaborative map lets anyone rename the entire world in real time

Rename.world is a playful, community-driven project where users discover, claim, and rename locations across a live global map. It's kind of like Wikipedia meets Google Maps, filtered through the internet's love of chaos and whimsy.

Cultivate your coffee taste with this interactive flavor wheel

Coffee is one of the more complex things humans consume, and taste can vary drastically based on bean genetics, roasting technique, and more. Using this flavor wheel, you can more accurately describe your coffee's aroma by starting from the center and moving outward.

Explore the wineries of Napa Valley with an interactive map of its hundreds of wineries, vineyards, and tasting rooms.

Twelve artworks you'll love zooming into

Zoom in on these famous paintings to see what's hiding up close, then go exploring the rest of Google's incredible Arts and Culture hub.

Traditional bands largely disappeared from the Billboard charts in the 21st century, mostly replaced by solo artists.

80 artists on their favorite Bob Dylan songs

Listen to any rock music from the past century and you’ll likely hear some trace of Dylan’s influence. This massive list, released back on Dylan’s 80th birthday, offers objective data to back that up. Its 80 participants include David Byrne, Michael McDonald, and dozens more. The best part? The article also includes a playlist, so you can listen to the songs while you read about their impact.

An immersive curation of the world's rock art

A living archive of humanity’s ancient art and symbols, our shared history that is embedded as rock art and cave art in the landscape

A network of live bird song trackers

Do you know where the birds are singing? In a kind of magical way, now you can see where the latest literal tweets are happening with this innovative network of birdsong trackers dispersed around the world. The network automatically identifies which bird produced the sound and shares the data with the network. See who's singing here.

Visualizing a synaesthetic soundscape

Artist Michal Levy has chromesthesia, a subtype of synesthesia in which sounds and music trigger involuntary associations with and sensations of color. This condition gives Levy a unique artistic perspective and ability to interact with and interpret music. In this short animation, Levy tries to capture her audiovisual experience of 'Giant Steps," considered a landmark composition in jazz history by musician John Coltrane.

Prince had an eclectic range of influences

Early in his career, Prince would sometimes claim in interviews that he didn't listen to much music outside of his own. In later years, he'd admit that was a lie born out of arrogance. In reality, he listened to a wide array of artists, with great admiration for people like the Cocteau Twins, D'Angelo, Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, De La Soul, and many others. This survey of his career's interviews collects all those mentions of other artists, creating a fascinating database of the music that inspired Prince.

Explore key locations in Kurt Cobain's life with this interactive map

The "Grungeology" project maps out key moments, influences, and impacts of Cobain's life in and around Grays Harbor County. Click through the map's many historical spots and learn how Nirvana's band leader navigated his hometown as his fame and music grew.

Music was a profound inspiration for Basquiat

The prolific artist loved music, obsessing over David Bowie, Aretha Franklin, and numerous jazz figures. Many of his favorites appeared in his paintings, creating a body of work that also acts as a glossary of influences. Below is a 1984 portrait of Max Roach, the jazz drummer. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

The idea of a tongue map has been discredited, but taste sensitivity can vary across the tongue.

Explore an interactive map showing what makes people happy.

Using 10,000 responses collected from people around the world about what makes them happy, this map offers insights into how relationships, finances, purpose, and small treats all contribute to a person's contentment. Recent data suggests that young people today are less happy than those in previous generations, indicating a need to reflect on what really matters in life.

Every city has a song: Music writers identify one tune that represents their hometown, from Chicago to Buenos Aires

Staffers from SPIN magazine wade into the contentious waters of official anthems, making the case for their chosen track, from Chicago's "Tonight, Tonight" by the Smashing Pumpkins to the Bobby Bare rendition of "The Streets of Baltimore."

Pictures of paintings: a virtual art museum

If you can't get to the art museum, maybe try bringing the art museum to you. This independent project presents photographs of select classic, public-domain paintings in an interactive format so you can get the full museum effect from home. Note:...

Music today is often intended to circulate on social media

Artists are increasingly using TikTok and other short form video platforms as a space to promote their music. One scholar notes this emphasis, and connect it to Taylor Swift's early use of social media to promote her own work and brand.

Listen to a jazz composition triggered by the New York City Subway

A creative coder created a (synthetic) jazz ensemble that uses the locations of the city's trains to determine its performance. It's both a fascinating bit of internet culture and a fitting homage to New York, one of jazz's major hubs.

An interactive periodic table maps every possible combination of cheese variables

Plotting milk type, texture, rind, mold, aging, and processing as intersecting axes, the tool shows which combinations already exist as named cheeses, which survive only as rare regional styles, and which remain entirely unexplored.

An absurd website that always finds a photo of someone pointing at your cursor

Move your mouse anywhere on the screen, and the site finds a photograph from its archive of a person pointing at that exact spot. It's a completely useless and delightful experience, and required a massive trove of tagged photos.

Explore a list of the 40 best obscure albums of the past 40 years, featuring lost classics from Talk Talk, King Sunny Ade, Linda Ronstadt, and more.

Create digital maps of Earth with custom sketches and labels

In this interactive, users can apply layers to various base maps to display natural and human features, including geological activity, biomes, ocean currents, population densities, and light pollution. Custom legends, markers, and drawings can be used to highlight prominent features.

Inside the rise of focus music

Any casual YouTube or Spotify user has likely stumbled upon a playlist called "lo-fi beats to study and relax to" while searching for new music. Those "lo-fi beats" actually represent a growing genre of music called "focus music." Spotify, for instance. saw a 50% increase in listening time for focus playlists in its 2023 Wrapped report. This article explains why productivity tunes are on an upswing right now. Read it here.

Check your 5G coverage with T-Mobile’s interactive map

Enter your address or zip code in this interactive map from T-Mobile to see where 5G and 4G coverage is available near you.

What to listen to if you want to focus

Have you ever put your headphones in, turned on your favorite playlist, and tuned out the rest of the world? That’s the power of music. It can improve your mood, reduce stress, and enhance focus. But what kind of music is best when working or studying? Check out this list for some suggestions.

To get that song out of your head, try distracting yourself or playing a new song

Around 90% of people experience getting a snippet of a song stuck in their head, also known as an earworm. Researchers think they are linked to memory, repetition, and inner rehearsal. Before written language, music was used alongside rhyming in many cultures to help people preserve oral histories.

Explore a list of the best album covers of all time, featuring iconic covers by Pink Floyd, Cyndi Lauper, Nirvana, and more.

Viral pop artists create systems of participation, not just music

Musicologist (and Swift expert) Paula Clare Harper weighs in on the factors that make music go viral. Tracks designed for shareability that feed well into content algorithms on streaming platforms are able to grow in popularity, with traditional human gatekeepers sidelined.

Find connections between Wikipedia articles utilizing a node mapping tool

Multiple Wikipedia articles can be placed on the map, each with its own node, and expanded to reveal related articles. The goal is to expand as many subsequent nodes as needed to connect articles and identify related concepts. Any node can be double-clicked on to open its respective Wikipedia page.

The art of 'undiscovering' phantom islands

Centuries of maps include islands and isles that appear to only exist on atlases. This article explores the discovery and "undiscovery" of such landscapes, which still persist despite modern technology. As recently as 2012, Google Maps showed an...

Visualize network coverage for mobile carriers worldwide with maps of crowdsourced latency and download and upload speeds.