Adam Linder | Free
- Discover great music from all around the world
- Works best with an Apple Music account
- Refreshingly flexible payment system
It’s one of the paradoxes of modern life that while we have access to virtually limitless music, it’s difficult to find anything genuinely new. We each live in curated media bubble, where each piece of content we consume informs the next.
Univershuffle offers something different, and it’s strikingly simple in both concept and execution. It takes all of the music in the world (or at least, the 100 million or so tracks available on Apple Music) and shuffles it. No algorithms, no AI, no curation of any kind.
The app works with Apple Music to surface random tracks
Apple Music already has a shuffle function, of course, but it’s still operating within boundaries set by invisible algorithmic overlords.
Univershuffle strips out any such artificial biases, and offers up a pure shuffle function for the world’s entire discography. Pressing play might yield a sultry piece of cumbia one moment, a pumping slice of techno the next, followed by a sensitive acoustic number from a random singer song-writer. It’s pure chaos, for better and worse.
Not every track will be of the highest quality
It might even throw up the odd eyebrow-raising piece like a sensual track from a Kama-Sutra-inspired compilation (true story). A quick skip, though, and I discovered a beguiling piece of classical music played through an old fashioned music box, followed by a thrillingly cinematic piece of drum and bass.
In other words, Univershuffle leads to the kind of random, unmediated discovery that simply doesn’t occur through your current streaming service. Sure, I’ve encountered plenty of music that evokes a wince or a giggle, but there have also been some genuine discoveries that I’ve wanted to add to my library.
The Action Button can be set to save or open tracks in your music app
To help achieve that there’s a customisable Action Button that defaults to opening the current track in Apple Music. It can also easily be set to add the track, artist, or album to a playlist or to your library.
That latter function is one of the three key bonuses to paying for the app, with the other two being the ability to exclude selected genres and making the whole app ad-free. The payment options are refreshingly flexible, offering you the ability to pay monthly from $1/£1 a month, or outright with a one-off payment from $5/£5. In both cases, you can specify larger payments or ongoing tips to support the small developer.
There is some potential to steer the selections through genre exclusion
Otherwise, Univershuffle is free to download and use with only slightly diminished functionality. All you need is an Apple Music account to play songs directly through the app. Without this you get 30 second song snippets and the ability to link to Spotify or other third party services to hear the full tracks.
For those who pride themselves on their eclectic tastes, this is a fantastic way to find new and obscure gems. If you’re an Apple Music subscriber and you’ve found yourself getting a little tired of the same old same old, Univershuffle is one of the best ways we’ve encountered to mix things up.