For a Digital Music Subscription Service, Daisy’s First Move Is Surprisingly Old School

Last month, when Beats Electronics co-founder Jimmy Iovine announced his company’s new digital music service Daisy and named Topspin head and former GM of Yahoo! Music Ian Rogers its CEO, the music veteran declared, “What’s missing from the digital music landscape is a cultural context. We need to bring an emotional connection back to the act of music discovery.”

A little over a month later, the first step we’ve seen from Daisy comes not with some monumental splash into the sea of digital music but more of an old school drop.

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Via last weekend’s San Francisco 24-hour Music Hack Day event, where programmers, designers and artists assembled to conceptualize, build and demo innovative ideas in music and technology, Rogers came up with a Twilio-based app that acts as a call-in line for music fans looking to connect with their favorite artists and pick up some free tunes in the process. 

To accomplish the instant connection, Rogers set up the phone number (310) 299-8756 which provides touch-tone options for: 1) “a music recommendation” that will lead users to Rogers’ cell phone, answering as the “Rock ‘n’ Roll Doctor”; and 2) to “leave a message for your favorite artist.” He recruited recruited the Beastie Boys and Daisy’s newly appointed Chief Creative Officer Trent Reznor to set up voicemail accounts and offer free music giveaways for all users. (With a wink, the third option, which isn’t really an option at all, just quotes a line from Jay-Z‘s “99 Problems” — “If you’re having girl problems / I feel bad for you, son.”)

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Once users select and leave a message for one of the artists and press pound to stay on the line, they will hear the unlocked track and receive a text message with a link for download. 

The Beastie Boys’ giveaway is a B-side from Paul’s Boutique, and Reznor’s is an unreleased track from an upcoming How To Destroy Angels album.

All in all, it’s a pretty cool attempt to provide an emotional connection to music discovery. And according to Twilio, Rogers is working on additional features for the phone service that will allow more Daisy staff listening-recommendations and a “listener support hotline and an artist support hotline.”

For a full list of Hack Day San Francisco’s projects’ go here or see Wired’s top choices here.

Twitter: @THRMusic