Starling

A home for music you'll love to return to.

Starling is a music library manager and player built for getting to know your music one song at a time. Go through your collection song by song, tag what stands out, and decide what's worth keeping. You'll build a curated library of songs you actually love, tagged with mood, energy, descriptive words, and whatever draws you in.

Available for Windows and Linux.

Get it on itch.io Get it on Gumroad

How it works

Start by importing your music library. From there, you can complete a review or jump straight into your library to start listening.

Review your music

Each day, Starling prompts you to complete a Daily Review, a random batch of songs or, if you'd prefer, a random album. Each review asks a few optional questions: how gentle or intense the song feels, how dark or bright, what words describe it, and what actually draws you to it (the vocals? the lyrics? the instrumentation?). The only required question is the last one: whether to add a song to your curated library, or pass.

You can also start your own reviews whenever you'd like. Review a specific album all in one sitting, or jump to specific songs you want to review.

Starling review screen for "No Children" by the Mountain Goats. It shows the album cover above an energy and mood grid. The energy goes from calm to intense, and the mood from bright to dark. A pin sits in the lower right quadrant at slightly intense and mostly dark.
Starling's review screen, scrolled down. It shows rows of mood words, organized by quadrant. The words Aggressive, Angry, Raw, Cathartic, and Sardonic are highlighted. Below that, the question "What draws you to this song?" has Voice, Lyrics, and Emotion selected. The question "Add to your curated library" has "Add" selected.

Listen to your library

As your curated library grows, you'll have a collection you can actually navigate. Filter by mood and energy, by descriptive words, and by what draws you to a song. Want something bright and upbeat? Find it. Looking for a dark, moody song with a catchy melody? You can filter for that, too.

Starling library view listing curated songs with their genre, mood, and energy
Starling library view with filters open for mood, energy, what draws you, and descriptive words, above a list of curated songs

Features

  • Import your local library (MP3, FLAC, M4A, WAV, and OGG files are all supported)
  • Start a Daily Review, prompted once a day, for a random set of songs or a random album
  • Start custom reviews anytime for a specific album, specific songs, or another random batch
  • Review songs one at a time, tagging mood, energy, descriptive words, and what draws you in
  • Decide what belongs in your curated library as you review
  • Add or edit a song's tags right from your library, without opening a full review flow
  • Browse curated, unreviewed, and full library views, and filter or search by mood, energy, descriptors, and more
  • Build playlists and listen to your music collection through a queue-based player

Ready to try it? Starling is available for Windows and Linux.

Get it on itch.io Get it on Gumroad

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