Parallel

Music streaming has brought about a new era for people to listen to their favorite songs and find new tunes, artists, and albums. It was through Spotify and, later on, Last.fm that listening to music was also a social hobby of sorts. In the former, users could see what their friends were listening to and access their playlists, whilst the latter showed you direct taste relatability with other users.

Parallel feels like a combination of both, allowing users to connect over their music taste, create connections, organize listening parties, all while offering the possibility to stream their favorite songs with ease.

This program was designed to be easy to navigate through, and it's evident upon first glance. The Music section houses the music streaming side of the software, where users can explore new songs, dabble in different genres, create playlists, and look at their friends' collections.

Streaming your favorite songs is business-as-usual, and while the track library isn't as vast as that of Spotify or Apple Music, you'll most likely find what you're looking for. The sound quality is satisfactory, and there isn't anything particularly novel about music streaming here when compared to the mainstream solutions: which is good, there's no need to alter a formula that works as intended.

When it comes to connecting people over music, the application has several ways to do so. Create a group, send an invitation link to your friends, and chat about anything. You can create lounges, akin to creating channels on Discord, to better compartmentalize discussion.

Listening parties are also available here, and you can add music to the queue and listen to it with your friends. If that's more your thing, a voice chat function is also present.

Parallel is an interesting venture into music streaming: it offers users the possibility to stream their favorite tracks, whilst also providing a means for them to connect with others, based on their taste.