A music app with playlists that'll motivate you to get on your feet? Bloom.fm is the bee's knees, writes Anna Hunter
Grey skies, glacial weather and the lure of the duvet can all too easily sabotage our January gym bunny intentions. We could go after work, but... we're very tired, it's a bit boring and we haven't taken the hour and a half necessary to curate a motivational music playlist.
Well, stop right there. Or rather, GO GO GO! We've found just the thing to put a spring in your step and it goes by the name of Bloom.fm. It'll be music to your rears - in that it will most definitely encourage you to get off them.
Launched in November 2012, Bloom.fm is a mobile music service that combines free radio stations, on-demand streaming and innovative music discovery. If its peppy yellow design doesn't rouse your energies, then it's new 'Gym' genre radio stations certainly will.
Bloom.fm's in-house musicologists have sweated it out to bring you the only definitive workout playlists you will ever need. Whether you select 'Alt Gym', 'Yoga', 'Running' or 'Workout', Bloom.fm's tailored playlists will get you moving and enable you to push through the pain barrier (with a little help from our girl Beyoncé).
Queen B would in fact be right at home with this app as Bloom.fm's music library is presented in the form of a cute hive, with a non-irritating bee on hand to help and drop borrowed songs into your collection like pollen.
Well-conceived and simply executed, Bloom.fm's music discovery system is similarly bee-themed, with floating flower-like genre petals that allow you to listen to related artists and 'borrow' them to add to your personalised playlists. With a library of over 16 million tracks and 150 genre-based radio stations, we guarantee that you'll unearth some hidden gems.
Whilst it's free to just let the music play, flexible subscriptions allow you to 'borrow, enjoy and return' from just £1 a month (psst, that's much cheaper than Spotify). It also seamlessly integrates with your existing iTunes library, so that all of your music will be in one place. In addition, you can share playlists online via Facebook and Twitter or ping favourite songs to fellow Bloom.fm users.
And if Susan Boyle pops up in your drum and bass playlist? Tap on the 'doesn't fit radio' icon and it will never, ever happen again. So really, there is no excuse not to plug in and work out. Or at least find some speakers and throw a party...
Bloom.fm is free and available at www.bloom.fm