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Anyone who has ever heard of the Polaroid brand would instantly associate it with photography. And it may take us awhile to get out of that way of thinking, because Polaroid has now entered the music business.
The iconic camera maker is not just dipping its toes, either, but rather it’s taking a plunge with the launch of a radio station, a music app, and four Bluetooth music players.
The Polaroid Players
These latter—dubbed the P1, P2, P3 and P4—cover the portable music player gamut from an almost-handheld model in the $60 P1, to the beefy boombox-esque P4 retailing at $290. P2 will set buyers back $129.00 and the P3 $189.99. As mentioned, all four models have Bluetooth support, and each comes in a variety of colors.
Polaroid Radio and Polaroid Music App
Polaroid’s new digital radio station is ad-free and is described as “an experimental music discovery service.” Polaroid Radio eschews algorithmic selection in favor of a human-curated system that “puts radio back in the hands of real people,” according to Polaroid. These five “ever-evolving FM-like stations” are:
- Itchy Teeth (“Where pop gets weird”),
- Poly Chrome (“Like a rave in a kaleidoscope”),
- Iris (“Mist those plants, burn that incense”),
- Royal Pine (“Uplifting anthems with real roots”)
- Radio Heatwave (“Eternal sounds of summer”).
You can check these out on radio.polaroid.com, and also on the Polaroid Music App. The app is currently available in the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal and Austria. It will launch in more regions soon. The app also has Apple music integration, and Spotify integration should be coming to the app as well.
Bonus: new Polaroid camera on the way next year
Not many details are known at the present, but Polaroid chairman Oskar Smolokowski has stated that Polaroid is working on what he described as “our first more capable camera, optically.” The camera will reportedly release next year. Of the Polaroid legacy and the company’s shift in trajectory, Smolokowski said,
Great musicians and photographers capture what we can’t always express with words. They make us feel. We’re new in the music world, but we want to bring as much color and emotion to the space as we can. We’re excited about this new chapter while still being as committed as ever to instant photography. It still inspires people and is magical, but it cannot be the only thing that we do if we want to give Polaroid a future.
Check out all things Polaroid Music here.
Featured image via digitalcameraworld.com.
