The Live Music Mapping Project

The combination of the Covid epidemic, inner-city gentrification and austerity has had a hugely negative impact on live music venues and the live music networks of many cities. The Live Music Mapping Project has been launched to help overcome these challenges by creating detailed maps of the local live ecosystem in individual cities. Currently the project has released interactive maps for seven European cities, Birmingham, Hamburg, Rotterdam, Milan, Edinburgh, Liverpool and Newcastle. The project has also released a national live music map for Wales.

Each city's Live Music Map reveals the locations of active local live music venues. The individual music venues in each city are shown using colored markers. The colors of the markers indicate the type of venue (arena, stadium, nightclub, pub etc). The maps also include filters which allow you to see which venues have live music as their main business (eg not pubs and stadiums) and which venues host open-mic nights.

If you click on a music venue's marker on a map you can find its address, phone number and (where available) website link. You can also discover other details about the venue such as the type of venue, its capacity and its opening hours. 

Obviously the Live Music Mapping Project maps can help consumers of live music discover local live music venues in their cities. They are also incredibly useful for music artists and promoters in discovering and booking venues in which to perform.

Music Maps of the World

lo-fi earth is a Google Map which allows you to virtually explore the Earth while listening to the laid back tunes of lo-fi earth. lo-fi hip-hop is a laid back and chilled genre of music which marries hip-hop with jazz 'to create an atmospheric, instrumental soundscape'.

While the music plays you can explore the world on the interactive satellite map. This map includes a heat-map layer which updates to show all the places that you have explored. It also includes heat-map breadcrumbs showing you where other people have also been exploring the map since you started listening to lo-fi earth.

lo-fi earth also includes a camera button which allows you to take snapshots of places on the map as you explore the world. 

  

If you enjoy listening to music while exploring the world on an interactive map then you should also like the marvelous Radiooooo, global music map. Radioooo allows you to listen to music from anywhere in the world and from any decade going back to 1900.

To start listening to music on Radiooooo you just need to click on a country on the map. You can then select a decade using the buttons at the bottom of the map. The map will then automatically stream music from the country & decade which you have chosen. Radiooooo also includes an option to select the 'mood' of music that you wish to hear (slow, fast or weird). The 'Taxi' option even allows you to select to listen to music from more than one country.

You can also listen to music from around the world on Radio Garden. From the Pacific sounds of Radio Guam to the Siberian tunes of Radio Sabir, the Radio Garden 3d map allows you to listen live to thousands of radio stations across the globe.

Radio Garden features radio broadcasts from hundreds of countries around the world. Just click on a marker on this interactive map and you can tune in to local radio stations which provide live internet radio streams. Radio Garden is a great way to explore the sounds of different cultures around the world. It also provides an interesting insight into the broadcasting traditions of different countries.

The World of Music

cXc Music is an interactive map which anyone can use to share their music with the world. It can also be used to explore the music of the world.

Every circle on the cXc Music is a song. Click on a song's and you can listen to the song directly from the map. Using the map you can obviously browse and listen to music by location. You can also use the 'mood', 'format' and 'genre' menus to filter the type of songs shown on the map.

The colors of the markers on the map indicate the mood and genre of each song. The size of the markers show a song's popularity. You can vote for a song yourself by clicking on the big yellow up button which appears in the song's information window when you click on its marker.


You can also find and listen to music from around the world on the marvelous Radiooooo, global music map. Radioooo allows you to listen to music from anywhere in the world and from any decade going back to 1900.

To start listening to music on Radiooooo you just need to click on a country on the map. You can then select a decade using the buttons at the bottom of the map. The map will then automatically stream music from the country & decade that you have chosen. Radiooooo also includes an option to select the 'mood' of music that you wish to hear (slow, fast or weird). The 'Taxi' option even allows you to select to listen to music from more than one country.


Spotify's Musical Map of the World allows you to listen to locally distinctive music in cities around the world. Using the Musical Map you can select from around a thousand global cities and listen to music that appeals to local people who use the Spotify music streaming service.

When you select a city on the map you can view a Spotify playlist of the most popular distinctive music from that city. This playlist is not necessarily the most popular songs listened to on Spotify in the chosen city but the most 'distinctive'. In other words this is music that people in the chosen city listen to a lot, which people in other cities do not listen to so much.

A Serendipitous Stereographic Projection

Serendipity uses data from Spotify to show you the locations of two Spotify users who are listening to the same track at the same time. The map shows the locations of two users who have started listening to the same song on Spotify within a tenth of a second of each other, in different towns, cities, states, nations or timezones.

The thing I most like about this application is the use of a stereographic projection. The Web Mercator projection seems to rule the roost in online mapping these days, so it is nice to see a different map projection get a rare outing.

When the map progresses from one paired serendipitous song to the next couple of users it animates to a new map view, which is particular interesting to watch with this stereographic projection. You also get a quick blast of each new song featured as the map animates around the world.

The map was created with the help of D3.js. If you want to use a stereographic projection in your own maps you can check out the D3.js code for this map projection and a demo stereographic projection map here.

Oh God, It's Another Eurovision Map

It's Eurovision time. Right now on a TV channel near you the best of Europe's aspiring song writers are competing in this year's Eurovision song contest. God have mercy on our souls.

If you can't be bothered to watch through hours of awful music then you can instead browse through hours of awful music on this Eurovision Map, brought to you by Pinq Map, the real gay map of the world.

If you are a real sucker for aural punishment you can check out some previous years' Eurovision contests on these maps:

Eurovision Contest 2010
Winners of the Eurovision Contest 1956-2009

Get That Heatmap Twerking

#VMA2013 Geotagged Tweets is a heatmap of Twitter messages sent with the hashtag #VMA2013.

It appears that the Video Music Awards made quite an impression all over the world this year. I can't think why that would be or why the Chinese seemed to have been singularly unimpressed by a bouncing Miley.

The Mountain Goats Are Going Somewhere

American folk rock band The Mountain Goats have written a number of songs over the years with the words 'Going to ...' in the title, with a destination completing the song's name.

Going to Somewhere is a fun little Street View application that will take you to a random destination based on one of The Mountain Goats 'Going to ...' songs. Just press 'Go' and you will be transported to a new destination.

The only thing missing from this app is the actual music. It would be great if you could actually listen to the relevant song when a new location is shown. 

Hat-tip: Google Street View World

The Grateful Dead on Google Maps

When I fist saw this Grateful Dead Shows map my first thought was that the remaining band members had decided to organise a really, really big reunion tour. On closer inspection however the map seems to be a map of all the venues that the Grateful Dead have ever played.

It is isn't often that we feature a non-API map on Google Maps Mania but there is something lo-fi about this embedded Google My Map that seems appropriate to the band being memorialised. What's more the map is still useful to any music fans interested in the many live appearances of the Grateful Dead.

Users can click on any of the venue markers and then click on the "Search for items related to this venue" link to get details of all the band's appearances at the venue.

 Hat-tip: Google Street View World

Unsigned Bands on Google Maps

The Best of British Unsigned is a weekly radio show that showcases unsigned British bands and musicians. The weekly show is broadcast worldwide on over 80 FM radio stations.

The Best of British Unsigned Music Map displays all of the artists that have been featured on the Best of British Unsigned radio show. The map can also be used to find all the global radio stations that broadcast the show. If you select an artist's or a radio station's marker on the map you can view more details in the map sidebar, including website and Twitter links.

Stompin Tom on Google Maps

Stompin' Tom Connors was a Canadian country/folk singer who wrote many songs about Canadian locations.

CBC News has created the Stompin' Tom's Musical Map of Canada which maps vidoes of Stompin' Toms songs to the locations that are featured in the songs. Users can search the map by location and play and listen to the song videos directly from the map.

Also See

• Copenhagen Music - songs about Copenhagen, Denmark
• ARTE - New York Minute: a Hip Hop Guide - a typographic map of hip hop in New York
• Roadtrip Mixtape - create a play list for a road-trip containing only music by artists that are from the area you are travelling through

Google Maps the Road to Darwin Records

Darwin Records has released a Google Map to promote the release of 'Iron in the Soul' by Sic Defence. Using the Styled Maps feature of the Google Maps API Darwin Records have turned off every layer in this map except the road layer. 

There have been more revolutionary Google Maps based apps to promote the release of new songs but the simple use of the Styled Maps feature in the Darwin Records map has resulted in a very effective and striking map.


John Mayer's song Born and Raised can be listened to on this Google Map.

Shadow Days allows you to watch an animated Street View movie of any journey within the USA. To create your own movie you just need to set a starting point and choose a destination. You can then watch as the application animates through selected Street Views from your journey and you can listen to John Mayer at the same time.


Singer Lykke Li also used Google Maps to help promote her album Wounded Rhymes. In this app you have to follow the directions given by a compass rose in Google Maps Street View to reach a new destination and to hear the next song on the album.


The Wilderness Downtown is perhaps the most inspired use of Google Maps to promote a band.

This impressive Google Chrome experiment combines video, Google Maps and Google Street View and choreographed multiple windows to help demonstrate what is possible with HTML5. The experiment is an interactive interpretation of Arcade Fire's song "We Used To Wait" and was built entirely with the latest open web technologies, including HTML5 video, audio, and canvas.

Find Other Musicians on Google Maps

Group Tones is a Google Maps based social application to help musicians and music fans find gigs and other musicians nearby.

It is possible to search the map by location and find nearby musicians and gigs within a defined radius of the location. The map also includes a handy keyword search tool that allows you to search for other musicians by instrument. For example, if you are looking for a violinist just enter 'violin' and the map will only show nearby violinists. 

It is also possible to refine the results shown on the map by category. It is possible to just search for musicians or for upcoming gigs. 

Pop Culture on Street View

Ever since Google launched its 360 degree interactive imagery some music fans have been using Street View to find and tour the locations of famous album covers

The NME has created a Musical Tour of London with Google Street View, providing links to the Street View locations where a number of classic album covers were taken in the UK capital. BuzzFeed has also put together a collection of album covers with images of the same scene as captured by Google Maps Street View. .

The Musical Pilgrimages Map doesn't actually use Street View but it does use Google Maps to display locations made famous by musicians. The site's aim is to help you look up the location of a place mentioned in a song, shown in an album cover, used in a video or just where an artist was born. The Rapmap is using Google Maps and Street View to locate places mentioned in (you gusessed it) rap songs.

PopSpots has taken things a little further. The site does have a definite emphasis on album covers but has a wider scope taking in 'famous events of Pop culture', including scenes used in paintings. PopSpots has also got a little more creative in its presentation of album covers, actually using Photoshop to superimpose the album covers on top of the Street View image.

The Hip Hop Map Guide to New York

ARTE - New York Minute: a Hip Hop Guide is an interactive typographic map guide to the history of hip hop in New York.

Anyone can contribute a story to the map by registering with arte.tv. The stories can be accessed by clicking on the orange map markers on the map. Each story includes a Google Map or Google Map Street View of the relevant location.

The map has been developed to accompany a six part mini-series A New York Minute. You can watch each episode of A New York Minute on the arte.tv website.

Global Musical Tastes on Google Maps

Global Billboard

Smells Like Teen Spirit is going down a storm in Russia this week with over a thousand fans on Last.fm. Whilst in the USA over 7,000 listeners are Rolling in the Deep with Adele.

Global Billboard visualises the popularity of top artists and top tracks on Last.fm in (nearly) every country in the world, and in more than 200 metro areas. Using the map it is possible to check out which are the most listened to artists and tracks on Last.fm in different countries.

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Google Maps Makes Beautiful Music

Marker / Music

Forget that Ohio is a Piano, Aberdeen is an orchestra!

This truly amazing Google Map lets you mix your own music by clicking on different locations and playing the music recorded there. You can combine any of the recordings to create your own mix directly from the map.

Darren Solomon and the students and faculty of Northern State University shot over 70 videos of instruments being played around the town of Aberdeen. Twelve of the videos have been added to this Google Map. If you open up the videos you can play and mix the sounds being played in each video. You can even adjust the volume of each video / instrument.

You might expect that the result of opening different videos and mixing different instruments would be a cacophony of sound but I've played with this for a while and every mix results in a pretty serene and gorgeous sound.

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The Geography of Music on Google Maps

Jammap

Jammap provides a great way to explore different music styles around the world. If you drag the map marker on this Google Map and place it on a country the map loads songs uploaded to Jamendo from that country.

For example, if you drag the marker to Brazil you can listen to some great Latin music. If you like a particular track you can even grab a link and share it with your friends. Here's a great Dz Maana track from Algeria.

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Gigs on Google Maps with Video Previews

Bill's Map

Bill is a genius and I love this map.

Bill's Map is a Google Map of upcoming gigs in Austin, Texas. It is possible to search the map for upcoming shows by using the date slide-bar at the top of the map. You can then choose to view just the recommended gigs or all gigs on the map.

The genius idea is that when you click on a marker for a gig you can view a YouTube video of the band (where available). This means that you are able to search the map for gigs and get a quick preview of the bands or artists to help you decide where you want to go.

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A Google Map of Musical Memories

Grammy's - Music is Life is Music Map

It seems I'm a little late with this one. I assume this Google Map was created for the Grammy Awards back in February. But never mind, it's still a great map and it still works.

The Music is Life is Music map lets you drop songs on places that you associate with the music. Using the map it is therefore possible to express how music can take you back to a special place at a special time. Or, if that doesn't float your boat, you can just use the map to listen to some great songs added by other users.

Music is Life is Music apps are available for both the iPhone and Android phones. The apps let you drop music on the map when you are out and about.

Via: @andreitr

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Music Promo Street View Game

Wounded Rhymes

Lykke Li is a Swedish artist whose new album 'Wounded Rhymes' is out this week.

To help launch the new album a cool Street View based application has been released. Using the app you can follow Lykke Li's path to places of emotional significance in her life with Google Maps Street View and Google Earth. On your journey you also get the chance to listen to Li's songs.

To find Lykke Li's path in the promotion you need to follow the directions indicated by a compass rose in Google Maps Street View. The compass points in the direction that you have to travel and the distance to travel is given in metres. When you arrive at the specified destination, by navigating with the normal Street View controls, you are rewarded with the video of a song from Lykke Li.

You are now ready to move onto the next destination. Press the 'Search for the next rhyme' button and you will be taken to the next Street View hunt. The application uses Google Earth to zoom you out of the current location and transport you to the next part of the game.

If you register you can even save your progress and come back another time to continue your journey.

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