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Discovery zone
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Playlists
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Settings
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Social
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History
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Share Card
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Listening Report
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Badges
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Downloads
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Lyrics
Abstract
Music Universe is a free, social music web app built to make music accessible to everyone, in Azerbaijani, English, and Russian. Music is one of the simplest everyday ways people relax, lift their mood, and feel connected, yet paywalls, ads, and language barriers keep many people from enjoying it. Music Universe removes those barriers: anyone can open it in a browser, sign in with Google, and start listening in seconds.
Users can discover popular songs or paste any YouTube link, play music with a full-featured player (shuffle, repeat, playback speed, crossfade, and an equalizer), read lyrics, and download songs for offline listening. Radio mode automatically plays similar songs. Personal and shared playlists let friends build music together using a simple join code.
Social features support emotional well-being and connection: users can add friends, chat, see a music-taste match, listen together in live rooms, send reactions, and compete on a friendly leaderboard. A listening report, recap, listening history, and a system of 107 achievement badges help users build healthy, enjoyable listening habits.
The app is designed to be inclusive and respectful of privacy. It offers high-contrast and large-text accessibility options, keyboard shortcuts, backup and restore, and privacy controls that let users choose what friends can see.
Music Universe is a mobile-first web app deployed on Vercel, using Google sign-in, YouTube for streaming, and LRCLIB for lyrics. It is a well-being companion, not a medical device or treatment. Our goal is to make comforting, shared, and accessible music available to everyone, for free.
Inspiration
Music is one of the few things every person on Earth shares. It calms us down after a long day, helps us focus, lifts our mood, and connects us to the people we love. Yet for many people, a good listening experience is blocked by paywalls, constant ads, or an app that simply doesn't speak their language.
We built Music Universe to change that: a completely free music app that anyone can open on any device and start listening to immediately. It is available in Azerbaijani, English, and Russian, so people in our region and beyond can use it in the language they are most comfortable with.
We were also inspired by the idea behind Code the Cure: technology should improve people's everyday well-being. Stress, loneliness, and low mood affect almost everyone at some point, and music is one of the simplest, most accessible ways to feel better. Our goal was to remove every barrier between a person and the music that helps them, and to make listening a shared, social, and rewarding experience.
What it does
Music Universe lets anyone explore and play music from YouTube's huge catalog, 100% free, and wraps it in features that go far beyond a basic player.
🎧 Listen
- 🔍 Discover popular songs and play, download, or add any track to a playlist in one tap
- 🔗 Paste a YouTube link to instantly play any song
- ⚡ Full player controls: shuffle, repeat, next/previous, volume, and a persistent "Now Playing" card
- 📻 Radio mode: similar songs keep playing automatically
- 📝 Lyrics for the song you are playing, right inside the app
- 📱 Offline listening: download songs and play them without an internet connection
🎛️ Personalize
- 🎚️ Equalizer with bass, mid, and treble controls
- ⏩ Playback speed from 0.75× to 1.5× with the pitch unchanged
- 🔀 Crossfade for smooth transitions between songs
- 🎧 Background play modes (Off / Saver / Full) for phones and tablets
- 🌗 Dark mode and a three-language interface (Azerbaijani, English, Russian), switchable instantly
- 🔐 Google sign-in: get started in seconds with no new password
- ⌨️ Keyboard shortcuts for playback, lyrics, radio, search, the equalizer, and more
🎵 Playlists
- Create and manage personal playlists
- Create shared playlists and let friends join with a simple join code, so you can fill them together
👥 Social
- Add friends by email and chat with direct messages
- See a music-taste match percentage and what a friend is playing right now
- Listen together: create a room, share the code, and listen at the same time with live reactions
- A friends Leaderboard that makes listening a friendly competition
- Friend profiles with stats, top songs, and badges
📊 Your music, visualized
- 🕘 Listening history for every song you have played
- 📈 Listening report: plays and minutes over the last 7 days, day streak, most played artist, activity by day and by hour, and top artists
- 🎁 Recap: a shareable summary of your most played songs
- 🏅 107 achievement badges for streaks, plays, weekly and daily goals, artists, songs, friends, messages, and playlists
- 👤 Profile pages with your stats, badges, and top songs
🔗 Share
- Generate a share card with the album art, song title, and a waveform, then share or save it as an image
♿ Inclusive and private by design
- High-contrast mode and large text for better readability
- Privacy controls to choose whether friends can see your now-playing song, your profile stats, and your online status
- Backup and restore of your data, and the ability to export or delete it
Why it matters for well-being
Listening to music is one of the simplest everyday ways people relax, lift their mood, and feel less alone, and it is available to almost everyone. Music Universe removes the common barriers: no paywall, no language barrier, and no complicated setup. Social features such as friend chat, shared playlists, and listening together help people feel connected, while listening reports and gentle achievements encourage regular, enjoyable listening habits. Accessibility options make the app comfortable for more people to use, and privacy controls keep users in charge of what they share.
Music Universe is a well-being companion, not a medical device or a treatment.
How we built it
Music Universe is a mobile-first web application: no app store and no download from a marketplace, so anyone with a browser can use it. The interface uses a dark, immersive theme with clean navigation (Discover, Downloads, Playlists, Social, History) so every feature is only one tap away.
- Authentication: Google sign-in
- Music: streamed through YouTube
- Lyrics: fetched from LRCLIB
- Hosting: deployed on Vercel for fast, reliable access
- Languages: a full translation layer for Azerbaijani, English, and Russian
We also published clear Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Copyright pages, because a music product should be transparent about how it handles user data and content.
Challenges we ran into
- One interface, three languages. Every label, message, and empty state had to feel natural in Azerbaijani, English, and Russian, and switching language had to work instantly without breaking the layout.
- Smooth playback on mobile. Browsers handle audio, background playback, and screen locking differently, so keeping the player, crossfade, and controls consistent across devices took a lot of testing.
- Offline listening and audio effects. Saving songs for offline use while still supporting the equalizer and playback speed required careful thinking about storage and audio processing.
- Real-time social features. Friend requests, direct messages, shared playlists, listening rooms, and live "now playing" status all depend on user accounts and shared data, so we had to balance a fun social experience with user privacy.
- Keeping it simple. With so many features, the biggest design challenge was keeping the app fast, clean, and easy to understand for first-time users.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- A fully working, publicly available music app that anyone can open and use right now
- A multilingual experience built for our own community, not just an English-only product
- A complete ecosystem in one lightweight app: playlists, offline mode, equalizer, lyrics, radio, friend chat, shared playlists, listening rooms, and a 107-badge achievement system
- Real attention to accessibility and privacy, from high-contrast mode to granular sharing controls
What we learned
We learned that a great product is not only about features but about removing friction: one-tap sign-in, instant language switching, and a player that is always within reach. We also learned how much detail goes into audio on the web, from mobile browser behavior to offline storage and sound effects, and how small touches like streaks, badges, and listening reports make an app feel personal. Finally, we learned to prioritize ruthlessly and ship the features that matter most to a listener first.
What's next for Music Universe
- 🎧 Smarter, personalized recommendations based on listening history
- 🧘 Mood-based and relaxation-focused mixes to support well-being
- 🛋️ Richer live listening rooms to enjoy music with friends in real time
- 🌐 More languages and more regions
Music belongs to everyone, and Music Universe is our step toward making it free, social, and accessible to all.
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