We've been hearing the moans and groans of the music industry for a while about its demise due to lack of interest in the physical music product. And some of us still love that physical experience of putting on a record--the scent of it, delicately placing the needle on the vinyl, and pushing play. Luckily designers and other creatives see these changes as opportunities, and interesting new ways of experiencing and connecting with music are finally picking up some steam. A recent example we wrote about is Boym Partners' collaboration with Ghostly Records, involving a "totem" designed to bring tactile life to Matthew Dear's Black City album.

The program is specific to Google Chrome (of course), and you have to close out of everything else to watch, but this actually adds to the experience. Once you're in, various windows open and close as digital flocks of birds fly by and a boy runs at sunset. And then, using Google Maps and Street View, the program weaves in shots of the street you grew up on and your childhood home. Adding more wow-factor and tear-jerk moments, the program then takes a pause toward the middle, asking you to write a note to the kid-version of you, all in a growing-tree drawing tool. When complete, you can send off your note to be read by others, or respond to someone else's message. The overall result is both poignantly nostalgic and technologically intriguing.

As Google says, with HTML 5 in Google Chrome, the site uses: "Choreographed windows, interactive flocking, custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing, 3D canvas rendering..." and all successfully establish an entirely new experience for listening to music.