The music that pubs or bars play can be the first way to tell if you’re going to want to stay – with Secret DJ, however, if you don’t like those tunes you can choose them yourself.
The app also includes all the expected guides to local bars, but the innovative factor is a live view of what’s playing right now, in any one of the 2,000 venues the developers claim use the Secret DJ jukebox. And if you choose enough tracks for the venue you’re in, then you will “become the DJ”, but all users can choose what tracks they want to play. That may evoke visions of constant and bitter arguments between stubborn hipsters, but in fact the system edits and manages the selection available to avoid such awkwardness.
Indeed, what is impressive about such a system is not particularly what it does – after all, phones have been used to choose music on domestic systems such as Sonos for several years – but rather that making it a public service is now something that venues accept and the system can make workable.
Apparently the team of DJs and musicians behind Secret DJ are already “behind the music in over 2,000 of the best bars, pubs and restaurants from Shoreditch to Shanghai”. The 250 or so London locations using the service will soon be joined by those in other cities including Brighton and Manchester. Clients already include the Hoxton Bar & Kitchen and top burger joint MeatLiquor, as well as more mainstream venues, which makes it all the more surprising that such experts are willing to cede control.
What explains that is the fact that after you’ve queued up your favourite songs in your chosen bar, the app directs you to Amazon, should you or your fellow revellers want to buy them.
