Grey Matter is a social music app with expressive ways to share, discover, and support music.
Today Grey Matter is both a working product and a work in progress. To give you a lens into where we are and where we’re going, we've broken things down into the what’s, the why’s, the how's, and the what comes next's.
Are you an artist, curator, community leader, or listener/fan? Here's how Grey Matter can provide value to you:
We know the streaming model isn't perfect, but it's how most people access music - and ergo how artists get exposed to the most people - so we've built Grey Matter to meet you where you are.
Our music player is currently plugged in to Spotify and Apple Music, so you can log in using your existing credentials, save newly discovered tracks to playlists, and share music and build conversations across platforms.
Where we're going: We're going to connect every music provider within one player so that everyone can share music together, regardless of where you are in the world or how you’re accessing music.
The mechanism we've created to share music is called the Expression, which is a visual pairing with music that helps you convey how a track makes you feel.
Streaming platforms offer a passive, “lean back” experience, but Expressions are active. Through a combination of colors, GIFs, words, emojis, and tags, you can express yourself through the music you love. They represent a conscious decision to affiliate with a piece of music and with the people who created it.
Plus, music is too personal and too abstract to be limited to numbers and words. Music doesn't (and shouldn't) exist on a scale from good to bad. Expressions enable you to share your connection with music in a more emotional, colorful way.
Where we're going: The sky’s the limit; it's important to us that you're part of this conversation. Want to draw how the music feels as it unfolds? Want to express music based on the real-time weather? Maybe pull from a database where visual artists have created their own custom expressions?
Let us know how you’d like to be able to express your music.
Grey Matter is a digital community that supports and amplifies real-life music connection. Crews are where that connection happens within the app.
Social platforms that aren’t music-focused can’t be expected to make structural decisions to benefit music communities - their scopes are simply too broad for that. Music deserves its own digital space completely dedicated to its communities.
Where we're going: We want Crews to grow with you, and to serve you and your music communities the way you need them to. So we’re baking in more customization, addressing everything from privacy settings to content types to community support mechanisms (see below).
If you’re a community leader (music label, collective, venue, blogger or anything in between) who’d like to be part of these conversations, please drop us a line: contact@greymatter.fm.
Listening, sharing, discovering, and supporting music should happen in one place, but today those pieces are disconnected. In the absence of a unified space, the vast majority of artists aren't getting discovered, aren't building fanbases, and aren't making sustainable wages.
Today, artists have to pay to promote the music they paid to make with money they can’t earn to listeners who aren’t even aware that they can’t hear them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And communities that support those artists face similar challenges.
Building a more sustainable music ecosystem starts with free, accessible tools that drive organic discovery, community building opportunities, and financial support mechanisms.
As we build, it’s important to us that the community has a lens into what we're doing - as well as a voice that informs how it takes shape. Remember, it's in everyone's best interest to make sure our favorite artists can continue making art.
Want to get involved? Give us a shout: contact@greymatter.fm.
