If you’ve ever used a service like 8tracks, then you might be familiar with one of its more aggravating flaws: 8tracks is an amazing place to discover new songs and playlists, but its tagging system leaves much to be desired. When everyone tags their playlists with words like chill, sex or study, it’s impossible to find playlists that are actually appropriate for relaxing, making love or studying.

Enter Strings.FM, a new playlist creation and listening app. The app’s creator, a Torontonian named Andrew Konoff, wants to change how music lovers tag and find playlists by using everyone’s favourite form of expression: the emoji.

When a user wants to create a playlist, the app prompts them to first choose three distinct emojis. It then finds songs that fit the mood of those three emojis and then, taking a cue from Tinder, users swipe left or right depending on if they want to use the song in their playlists. It remains to be seen if the emojis will help with discoverability, but at the very least it’s a fun and novel way to create a playlist.

The app is currently free and available on Apple’s App Store, though it requires an Rdio Premium subscription to make the most of.
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Igor Bonifacic is the managing editor of Toronto Standard. Follow him on Twitter.

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