Harman Drops Is a TikTok-Style App for Finding New Music in 30-Second Clips

Harman, the audio company behind JBL and AKG, has launched a music discovery app called Drops. It works like TikTok for music: you scroll through a feed of short clips, each 10 to 30 seconds long, posted by friends and tastemakers, and when a song catches your ear you tap through to hear the full track on Apple Music, Qobuz or TIDAL.

The app was announced on Monday 9 November, and Harman says it is free to download. For now it is US-only and invite-only, so most people cannot try it yet.

How Drops works

Drops is built around the idea that the best way to find new music is through people you trust, not an algorithm. The feed shows short clips shared by friends and by curators Harman has partnered with, and each clip links out to a full version of the track on one of the three supported streaming services.

That last detail is the interesting one. Apple Music, Qobuz and TIDAL are all supported at launch — but Spotify and YouTube Music, the two biggest streaming services in the world, are not. Harman has not said why, or whether they will be added later. For now, anyone who listens mainly on Spotify will find the app of limited use.

Who is behind it

Harman is owned by Samsung, and the launch fits a pattern of the company expanding beyond hardware into software and services. Harman already works with a long list of music labels: Universal Music Group, Beggars Group, Symphonic Distribution, EMPIRE and UnitedMasters are all named as partners, which means the app has access to a large catalogue of music to draw clips from.

The photo at the top of this article is a closely relevant photo of someone listening to music with headphones, rather than a screenshot of the Drops app, since no app screenshots have been made available.

Why it matters

Music discovery is a crowded space — TikTok already does much of what Drops promises, and Spotify's own recommendation engine is formidable. But Drops is betting on something different: that people want recommendations from other people, not from an algorithm, and that a short clip is enough to decide whether a song is worth a full listen. The invite-only, US-only launch suggests Harman is testing that bet carefully before committing to it. If it works, it could become a genuine alternative to scrolling TikTok for new music; if it does not, it will be a footnote. For a sense of how Harman's parent company is thinking about audio, our report on the limited-edition Galaxy Buds4 Pro covers Samsung's latest earbuds.

Sources

• GSMArena — Harman unveils Drops, a music discovery app that plays short clips
• TechCrunch — Harman launches Drops, a TikTok-style music discovery app
• Harman — Harman launches Drops