Ever since our move back to Germany, I’ve taken to playing SongPop against random Germans I don’t know…

A couple of years ago, there was a hot new game on Facebook called Song Pop. Since I am a “music nerd”, I took to that game with a vengeance. In fact, I was such an enthusiastic player that I caught the attention of George Bounacos, owner of Pop Rock Nation. He realized I knew a lot about popular music and asked me to contribute to this blog. For awhile, George and I squared off regularly, wasting lots of time on the fast paced music identification game.

A demonstration of SongPop on YouTube.

Since 2012, most of my American Facebook friends have abandoned SongPop. I only have one actual Facebook friend who still plays regularly. Truth be told, I had kind of slacked off on the game myself, like I inevitably do with most games on Facebook. But then in August of this year, I found myself stuck in hotels and a temporary apartment, with not enough things to do to occupy my time. I picked up SongPop again, but I started issuing challenges to suggested opponents. Since I am now in Germany, my opponents, I presume, are all Deutschers!

It’s been interesting playing SongPop with these folks. For one thing, they are all uniformly really good at the game. It’s a challenge to beat them. In fact, one guy I’ve been playing goes by the name of Yotam. He lives in Berlin and regularly whips my ass at Song Pop. I have found only a few genres he doesn’t know well and he has found many more with which I am unfamiliar. He seems to really like dance music and I picture him as at least ten years younger than I am and big on the club scene. Given the nature of Song Pop and the fact that you only hear a few seconds of each song, it’s hard for me to get much better at the Trance, Electronic, and Hip Hop categories he seems to favor. On the other hand, I can’t deny that I have been exposed to some interesting new sounds. I will have to do some exploring soon.

There’s another guy named Thorsten I’ve been playing who lives in Vaihingen Enz, which I don’t think is that far from where I live now. He likes industrial music and 70s era punk. He’s not as hard to beat as Yotam is, but he is definitely a respectable Song Pop opponent. I feel good when I achieve a victory over Thorsten. So far, those two have stuck with me the longest.

For awhile, I was also playing “Adriane”, who knew her stuff when it came to modern country music. I’m not sure if she’s German or not, but based on some of the games we played, I suspect she is. And she was also challenging me to genres I have no clue about like Brazilian pop divas! But then, I am guilty of such gamesmanship, too. I’ve been known to challenge people with Christian rock, national anthems, and opera. I’m usually pleasantly surprised when it turns out they know about those categories!

I don’t know if Germans are uniformly tougher opponents in SongPop than Americans are, but I do know that the ones I’ve been playing have been as good or better than I am at the game. And I think, too, that the categories SongPop players choose say a lot about the type of people they are. If I were still academically inclined, I might even do a formal study on it. But as it is now, SongPop remains a fun way to pass all the free time I have.

About a year ago, I was hooked on Facebook’s SongPop game. But lately, I’ve experienced a SongPop slowdown…

You know how it is. You’re on Facebook and a new game comes out. Pretty soon, your friends are bugging you to play. I got hooked on a few Facebook games, but the one that really captured my attention was SongPop. I am a certified music nerd and I’m pretty good at guessing the names of songs and the people who sing them. When SongPop first came out, I was really into it. Some of my friends quit playing with me because I would often beat them pretty soundly. On the other hand, a few of my friends are every bit as music nerdy as I am and our matches would get pretty heated.

But, as with almost everything on Facebook, the fad seems to have faded somewhat. There was a time when I’d have a whole lot of people wanting to play SongPop with me to the point at which it was annoying. I could open the game and be assured that I’d have several games waiting. I’d even have a few folks who would bug me to play. One player in particular was even worried about how I would keep up with our SongPop challenges while I was visiting Europe last year. Now? I’m lucky if I play a couple of times a week. People seem to have lost interest, the same way they lost interest in Mafia Wars and Farmville.

SongPop video…

The game is pretty easy to play. You pick a category and then listen to ten second snippets of songs. You either guess the title or the artist. Some of the categories can be pretty obscure. I, for one, enjoy playing the Eurovision category, much to the annoyance of some of the people who play with me. It’s not that I know a lot of Eurovision songs. I just like trying to figure them out. I feel the same way about the National Anthems category, on which I seldom do particularly well. On the other hand, I get annoyed when people send me hairband or rap challenges. I suck at those categories.

Sadly, I don’t do that well on categories featuring 90s era music or today’s hits. I ought to listen to newer music more often if only so I can be a better SongPop player. But if you challenge me in 70s or 80s hits, prepare for a fierce battle. I also rock on the classic rock songs. Not long ago, it didn’t take me too long to save up “coins” so I could buy new song lists. But right now, things have kind of stagnated.

I guess I’m not too sad that SongPop isn’t as blazing hot popular as it was a year ago. I mean, there are certainly more productive ways I could be spending my time. But SongPop definitely has its place, especially when you blog about music. Sometimes when I play SongPop, I’m reminded of songs I had long forgotten about. Then I end up downloading them. Of course, that is ultimately the whole point of Facebook games… the developers hope you’ll spend some money.

Well, I just checked Facebook and no one has issued me a challenge. Maybe I should get on the stick and invite someone to play.

Have a good weekend, everybody!