Spend an afternoon at Astor Place and you might be lucky enough to be a contestant on Track Star – the internet game show so popular that everyone from Charli XCX to Oprah has asked to play on it.
“If you can name the artist, you'll win $5,” host Jack Coyne tells contestants, who volunteer to play and be given a pair of Beats headphones.
After participants name their favorite music genres, the New York native plays snippets of songs from his vast catalog that he thinks the stranger can guess — tempting them to double their cash prize with every correct answer.
“The idea of the show is — it's not something you catch. We're not trying to force people to fail,” Coyne, 33, told The Post. “We're trying to play music that people love and we're trying to evoke a reaction in someone that makes them talk about something in their life that the song brings up.”
The hugely popular music trivia series – with over 730,000 followers worldwide TikTok And Instagram In less than two years since its inception – it has become so successful that the biggest names in the music world, such as Ed Sheeran, Halsey, Camila Cabello, Sam Smith, Charli XCX and Paris Hilton, are keen to be its guests.
“We don't try to bring anybody to the show,” Coyne said. “It's all inbound. People ask.”
It also features the show's first “Superstar Artist”, olivia rodrigowho had appeared as a guest just a year earlier. At the time, the show only had 20,000 followers when her camp contacted Coyne and the Track Star team.
“That's when things changed and we realized this show was becoming a big deal in the music industry,” he recalled.
The track star also caught the attention of Vice President Kamala Harris, whose team invited Coyne and his team to interview the presidential candidate at the Democratic National Convention — and ask her questions about her music choices.
In fact, Coyne, who called the experience “mind-blowing,” was the first “press” Harris did after receiving the nomination — though it wasn’t an interview.
He said, “When we started including celebrities in the show, we realised that they are famous, but they are normal people. They are just like all of us.”
“The most famous person in the world [will have] “When they hear a favourite song, their reaction is the same as a stranger they meet on the street,” he said.
Coyne, with his brother Kieran Coyne and friends Henry Cornrosbecame a track star after launching his media company in January 2023 public opinionwho operates a YouTube channel and TikTok page dedicated to New York City trivia and short documentaries about the inner workings of the Big Apple.
Coyne said, “I started doing this because I've always had a lot of faith and optimism about this city and the people who live here,” and that he “wanted to show the citizens what I think is the greatest city in the world.”
The trio, who also do commercial work for major brands like Adobe, Gucci, and Nike to fund their other creative endeavors, came up with the idea of reaching “a much broader spectrum of people” than their typical NYC-based content through music trivia.
In just an hour spent around Astor Place — while people were carrying their Wegmans groceries home or hurrying to class at NYU — Coyne successfully recruited several eager volunteers, all of whom he called “that tiktok boy,
When Ben Bernstein, 24, saw Coyne on the corner, he said he had to stay and play, even though a wrong answer cost him $320.
While it may seem easy to guess the artists of your favorite songs, Coyne said there are usually more losers than winners. For those who score big — like a local firefighter named Ray who won more than $5,000 and donated it to the Tunnel to Towers charity — it's apparently easier than it sounds.
The moment you get in front of the camera and put on your Beats headphones, you get nervous and lose your confidence.
“I thought I was going to make $40 in one shot,” contestant and Murray Hill resident Liv Hamway, 23, told The Post after losing the game.
Hamway said, “You definitely go into it with a more positive mindset, and then you're in the moment and you think, 'Wait, there's a million songs out there, and I don't know them all.'”
And, for that reason, Coyne didn't repeat any songs the first year he hosted Track Stars. Although he doesn't consider himself a “music fanatic,” hosting the show introduced him to new artists and songs he might not have otherwise known.
“I was trying to figure out who are the 500 most popular, famous artists of all time, and how do I know those people?” he said. “And when you're listening to the radio, what comes on the most, and can you be sure you recognize those people, those songs that define the culture?”
Despite the show’s enormous success and the number of high-profile people vying for a spot on it, there’s still one person Coyne hopes will eventually guest star: Bruce Springsteen.
“My whole life, my whole family has been listening to Bruce Springsteen. His music has always spoken to me,” said Coyne, who revealed he has seen the New Jersey “legend” in concert seven times. “I think it would be a fun conversation, meeting someone you look up to so much and having a conversation about music with him.”
Though Coyne wouldn't be opposed to Springsteen's team approaching him about guest starring on Track Star, he hasn't been reached out — at least, “not yet.”
“I think it’s an open invitation,” he said. “Bruce, if you’re reading this, you’re invited to the show.”
