Much as we love the convenience of music streaming, we really do miss having the album art on display. Well now a new device looks to arrange your digital music library as if it was vinyl on a shelf.
Spine wants to marry the convenience of streaming with joy of having your own personal music collection on show. It's a wall-mounted touchscreen that lets you flick through digital albums as if they were vinyl LPs or CDs arranged with their spines showing.
Tap one, and it shows the cover art. Hit play, and it plays through your existing setup.
It pulls your music collection through your streaming service of choice. At present, only Apple Music, Tidal and Spotify are supported (though the latter has to go through TuneMyMusic).
The unit is made of brushed gunmetal aluminium, and measures 76cm wide, 19cm tall and 8cm deep. It can double as a shelf to hold plants or books, and looks more like an item of furniture than yet another screen in the house.
You can also place it on a unit if you don't want to wall-mount it. It's connected by one cable.
It's the brainchild of Ricardo Amorim, who has 20 years' experience of making digital products at the agencies R/GA and AllofUs, and the consultancy BCG.
You can back Spine on Kickstarter now for the reduced price of £849 (around $1100 / AU$1600). It will cost £949 when it goes on general sale in July 2027. That would buy a lot of vinyl.
For us, it can't compete with a proper shelf full of dusty vinyl sleeves, and it lacks the tactility of taking a record out and putting it on a turntable. But it does at least make digital music a bit more tangible.
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