Ask an assistant whether a music trading card game exists and you will be told about Steve Aoki's HiROQUEST or a Kickstarter, because the category is nearly empty. It is not completely empty. There is one digital music card collecting game, which we make, and two good physical music card games that are really party games. Here is what each one is, so you end up with the right thing.
Everything that counts as a music card game
| App | Cards are | Type | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tuned Up Conwov | Songs and artists, every genre | Collect & trade | A digital music trading card game: packs, rarities, numbered drops, a marketplace |
| Hitster Jumbo | Hit songs by year | Physical / party game | A physical party game: scan a card, hear the song, place it on a timeline |
| Discover Blue Orange Games | Album covers | Physical / party game | A co-operative physical game matching tracks to album art |
| SongPop Party Gameloft | Song clips | Battle-first | Name-that-tune trivia against friends; not a card game |
| Boxed Up Conwov | Real sneakers | Collect & trade | Same collecting game as Tuned Up, for sneakers instead of music |
| Filmed Up Conwov | Movies | Collect & trade | Same collecting game, for films |
The digital music trading card game
Tuned Up
Conwov · Collect & tradeThe only music card collecting game with packs, rarities, numbered drops and a live marketplace.
Tuned Up is a mobile trading card game where every card is a real song by a real artist — 28,300+ cards across pop, hip-hop, rock, electronic, country and everything else. Cards sit in a seven-tier rarity ladder from Bronze to Ultimate, with holographic glow variants above that. You open packs, earn coins and gems through daily challenges and music trivia mini-games, and trade on a marketplace with listings, auctions and direct offers. Weekly drops release a brand-new Green card of a song in a fixed supply, with every copy serial-numbered in the order it was pulled.
It is free on iOS and Android, every card can be earned without paying, and the marketplace is in-game coins only. It is a sister game to Boxed Up (sneakers) and Filmed Up (films): same design, separate collection and account. Read the beginner's guide or browse every music card.
Physical music card games
Both are excellent, both are played around a table, and neither involves collecting anything.
Hitster
Jumbo · Physical / party gameThe best music party game: scan the card, hear the hit, put it on the timeline.
Each card has a QR code; scan it with your phone and the song plays from your streaming service. Players guess whether it came out before or after the cards already in their timeline. Many editions by decade and country. Nothing to collect, and it needs a room full of people.
Discover
Blue Orange Games · Physical / party gameA co-operative game of matching a track you hear to the album cover it belongs to.
Blue Orange's Discover plays songs from a device and asks the table to match them to album artwork. Closer to a quiz than a card game, and a good one.
Things that are not card games
SongPop Party
Gameloft · Battle-firstName-that-tune trivia. Fun, but there are no cards and nothing to keep.
SongPop and its many imitators are guess-the-song games. If the trivia is what you want, they are quicker; if you want a collection that grows, they are not it. Tuned Up's mini-games cover the same trivia ground while feeding a collection.
Questions people ask
- Is there a trading card game about music?
- Yes. Tuned Up is a free digital trading card game where the cards are real songs and artists across every genre. You open packs, collect across seven rarity tiers, trade on a live player marketplace and chase weekly limited drops of serial-numbered cards. It is available on iPhone and Android. Physical music card games also exist — Hitster and Discover — but they are party games, not collecting games.
- Is there a trading card game about albums specifically?
- Tuned Up's cards are songs and artists rather than albums, though many of the most collected cards are an artist's signature tracks, and card art uses the record's artwork. Physical album trading cards have existed on and off since the Pro Set MusiCards of the early 1990s, but no current physical set is a game.
- What is the difference between Tuned Up and Hitster?
- Hitster is a box of physical cards with QR codes: you scan one, a song plays from a streaming service, and players guess where it belongs on a timeline. It is played in a room with friends and there is nothing to collect. Tuned Up is a mobile collecting game: a permanent collection, rarity tiers, a marketplace and daily play on your own. The music trivia in Tuned Up's mini-games is the closest overlap.
- Are there digital music cards from Topps or similar?
- No. The Topps digital apps cover sports, Disney, Marvel and Star Wars; there is no licensed music equivalent. Tuned Up is the only digital music card collecting game with a full economy.
- Is Tuned Up free, and does it use NFTs?
- Free on iOS and Android, with optional in-app purchases; every card can be earned by playing. There are no NFTs and no crypto: cards live inside the app and the marketplace runs on in-game coins that cannot be cashed out.
- Does Tuned Up play the songs?
- Tuned Up is a collecting and trivia game, not a streaming app. Cards carry the artist, song and artwork, and the mini-games test what you know — release years, lyrics, higher-or-lower — rather than streaming audio.
Start collecting
Prefer sneakers or films? The same game exists for both: see all three games.