App review of the week: Rhino Musical Aptitude Test vs. Justin Bieber Music Lyrics
With thousands of new mobile applications entering the market every week, it's becoming increasingly difficult for consumers to identify the apps that deliver the best--and the worst--that smartphones have to offer. Appealing/Appalling is a weekly feature that separates the wheat from the chaff--from games to navigation tools to augmented reality solutions, we cover it all, encompassing both free and premium downloads and spanning all major operating systems. Read on.
(And click here for previous installments in this series.)
| Rhino Musical Aptitude Test vs. Justin Bieber Music Lyrics | |
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Rhino Musical Aptitude Test Available for: iOS Price: Free Few caretakers of our pop culture heritage take greater care than Warner Music Group-owned Rhino Records, a label long synonymous with thoughtful, authoritative reissues of classic albums, cult favorites and off-the-wall obscurities alike. Any music nerd deserving of the designation/insult undoubtedly owns more than a few Rhino titles--the label's signature releases obliterate the line between entertainment and education, supplementing must-hear music with must-read liner notes, must-see archival photos and a wealth of related content. But even if you've done your homework, the new Rhino Musical Aptitude Test app isn't exactly easy like Sunday morning: A genre-spanning, era-hopping collection of multiple-choice trivia questions optimized for the iOS touchscreen, the game is challenging and addictive regardless of whether your tastes run to Basie, Bieber or somewhere in between. The Rhino Musical Aptitude Test spans four levels of five questions each, getting progressively tougher and more eclectic as the game progresses. Three life-saving Guitar Picks slash the number of possible answers from four to two--bungle three questions at any level, and it's game over. The easy questions are no-brainers--I think it's safe to assume most people know Sid Rabinowitz wasn't a Beatle--but how many folks recall the name of honky-tonk great Hank Snow's backing band (the Rainbow Ranch Boys) or the doo-wop group Sly Stone led during high school (the Viscanynes)? GameCenter and OpenFeint compatibility include more than 30 achievement badges to share via Facebook and Twitter friends, and in addition to multiplayer challenges, leaderboard support and multiple difficulty modes, the RMAT also offers real-life prizes for completing in-game tasks. We may never learn exactly who let the dogs out, but thanks to the RMAT, the answers to many of pop music's most pressing questions are literally at your fingertips. |
Justin Bieber Music Lyrics Available for: iOS Price: 99 cents
Whenever music enthusiasts begin assembling their lists of the rock era's greatest lyricists, some names are inevitable--e.g., Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Randy Newman, Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen. It's no less inevitable that teen phenom Justin Bieber's name appears nowhere on these lists. Consider this couplet from the Biebz smash "Baby": "And I was like baby, baby, baby, ohGiven that it almost certainly took less time to compose that chorus than it will take me to complete the rest of this review, the existence of the Justin Bieber Music Lyrics application seems particularly absurd--not only does the app shine a spotlight on some of the most shallow and juvenile pop songs ever written, but it does so without the contextual benefit of Bieber's vocals, stripping the lyrics of any meaning or impact whatsoever. Even at 99 cents, it's a rip-off--the app supplies little beyond the words to hits like "One Less Lonely Girl" and "U Smile," lifting Bieber's Wikipedia biography and adding social media sharing tools. Still, it could be worse--Rebecca Black Music Lyrics, anyone? |
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