The hit Fox show Glee is still in its freshman season and has already generated a steady stream of iTunes hits, plus a sold-out national tour. As the phenomenon continues to grow, the ragtag group of singers from William McKinley High School can add Smule’s new karaoke-based iPhone app ($2.99) to their growing resumes of merchandise.
Glee comes with three songs: Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab,” Queen’s “Somebody to Love” and “You Keep Me Hanging On” by Diana Ross. Choose one to sing along to and decide if your voice could use a little help in the form of pitch control or pitch and auto-harmonizing — if you’re a Rachel Berry, you can leave your voice as is, too. Additional tracks are available for purchase at 99 cents apiece and currently include: “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” “Imagine,” “I’ll Stand By You,” “Lean On Me,” “Taking Chances,” “Defying Gravity” and “No Air.” More tracks are planned for the future, but it’d be cool if Smule found some way to let users integrate Glee tracks they may have already purchased from iTunes into the app. Glee does not support iPhone 2G and only works on iPod Touch if you have an external mic.
The straight karaoke part of the app isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but Smule wouldn’t let Glee fans down. The company took the app to the next level with the implementation of social networking. Yes, you can share your track on Facebook, but you can also share your track with the entire world via Smule’s network. This allows other people, using a pretty cool-looking globe interface, to find you, listen to your track, become your Gleek or even join in. That’s right—you can sing along, in-app, with people from across the world—or across your street—and create your own virtual glee clubs.
I’d just like to know how Sue Sylvester “Cs” it.
