Moodagent is one of those apps that seems like, at first glance, it’ll cure world hunger, or abruptly manifest all those single socks you’ve lost over the past seven years — a holy-crap,-I-just-gotta-have-this-app, app.
What it promises to do is create a custom playlist, culled from your collection, based on five settable criteria: sensuality, tenderness, joy, aggressiveness and tempo. Unfortunately, my pet chameleon could have created a more cohesive playlist (had I an actual pet chameleon — which I don’t, and had I days to spend waiting agonizingly while he crafted my custom playlist — which I also don’t).
As an example, in the screenshot above to the right, I’ve pushed three criteria to the max: tempo (extreme right), aggressiveness (middle) and joy (left); under the bars are the top-five songs of the quickly whipped-up playlist. Now, neither Tool’s “Sober” nor The Police’s “Synchronicity II” could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered joyful; but even more horrible is that any playlist including both Tool and Kelly Clarkson within a few songs of each other could quite conceivably create a rift in the very fabric of space-time.
But it’s free. So check it out, may work for you.
When he was eight, Eli Milchman came home from frolicking in the Veld one day and was given an Atari 400. Since then, his fascination with technology has made him an intrepid early adopter of whatever charming new contraption crosses his path. He calls San Francisco home, where he works as a journalist and photographer. Eli has contributed to the pages of Wired.com and BIKE Magazine, among others. Hang with him on Twitter.
