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The Hype Machine follows music blog discussions
Every day, thousands of people around the world write about music they love — and it all ends up here.

ABOUT THE HYPE MACHINE Translate: FR DE ES IT PT

What is it?

To put it simply, the Hype Machine keeps track of what music bloggers write about. We handpick a set of kickass music blogs and then present what they discuss for easy analysis, consumption and discovery. This way, your odds of stumbling into awesome music or awesome blogs are high. Click here to read more about how we select blogs.

Get Started

We offer a few ways to explore the music that flows through our site:

  • Latest: What's going on right now in the blogosphere.
  • Popular: The most popular artists, searches and blogs on the internet right now.
  • Twitter: Interactive music chart of songs being posted on Twitter.
  • Radio: An eclectic non-stop radio stream of blogged tracks from the past week
  • Spy: Snoop on what other people are listening to on our site.
  • Zeitgeist: The best 50 artists, albums and songs of the year.
  • Dashboard: A customizable view of your favorite tracks, artists, blogs and users.

Why?

We are creating tools that empower independent voices that write about music. We think a select group of passionate people can produce more engaging conversation than a huge social mob, or a rigid hierarchy of editors. We amplify their posts and the audio they choose, to help this vibrant culture spread.

Oh yeah, music runs in our veins. You already figured that out though.

How does it work?

The Hype Machine tracks a variety of MP3 blogs. If a post contains MP3 links, it adds those links to its database and displays them on the front page.

Some of the frequently accessed tracks are cached by the Hype Machine server, much like Google Search caches web pages, to reduce load on the bloggers' servers and protect their bandwidth.

Those tracks are NOT available for download, but you can preview them via the play buttons that are next to each track.

The blog that posted a particular track is identified under every track by name so you can read more about why they posted it. If you enjoyed a track someone posted, stop by and let them know!

You can purchase CDs and individual tracks by using the "amazon" and "itunes" links that appear next to most tracks. Each purchase you make supports both the artists and the Hype Machine. Please buy and enjoy.


FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

How do I get my band's music on the Hype Machine?

We don't actually post or write about any of the music ourselves, we aggregate music blogs that do. Your best bet for getting onto the Hype Machine is to do one of the following:

Good Method: Simply peruse the full list of blogs included on our site.

Best Method: Search for some bands that are similar to your band on the Hype Machine, then click through to the blogs that are writing about them. Bloggers really appreciate when you look into their taste first and send them something they will actually enjoy.

What are the benefits of a user account?

With a free user account you can favorite searches, tracks, music blogs and other Hype Machine users by clicking on the hearts that are sprinkled around our site.

Then if you head to your profile page you can play your favorite tracks as a playlist and catch up on what your favorite blogs have been writing about lately.

Your public URL that you can share with friends is simply http://hypem.com/username. You can use this as an easy way to see what your friends are discovering lately.

Can I download songs from the Hype Machine?

No, the Hype Machine does not offer any tracks for download. We provide a list of tracks that are currently being discussed on blogs, not the files themselves. If you discover a song or artist you like, we encourage you to support them by purchasing their music.

I found a song I like, how do I buy it?

You can often buy it right away at the iTunes Music Store or on Amazon. Simply use the links next to tracks:

On every artist page you have a few choices for buying music:

DRM-FREE (meaning plain MP3s with no usage restrictions. Learn more on Wikipedia). This includes eMusic, which offers a 25 free song trial that you can load into your iPod or any other music player!

Is there a store you'd like to see on the Hype Machine? Let us know!

Do you list podcasts?

No, the Hype Machine does not list podcasts. Several excellent podcast directories are Yahoo Podcasts, Odeo and iTunes.

How do I subscribe to the Hype Machine pages?

The Hype Machine allows you to subscribe to any page on the website.

Here is a sampling of the RSS feeds we offer:

Some good newsreaders are:

The Hype Machine supports and respects the artists, writers, editors and producers who create original content available on the web.

The Hype Machine site users are encouraged to enjoy legitimate downloadable media and support artists by purchasing music after sampling it online. We provide full acknowledgement of the source and author for all audio that provides it - and we recommend that blog publishers include appropriate metadata when making audio available on the web. We also provide links to purchase music from Amazon.com, iTunes Music Store and the eMusic digital music store, where possible.

Additionally, authors of all postings that we index are clearly identified whenever they appear on the Hype Machine website or in the search results. All such mentions have a link to more information about the specific blog and a link directly to where the post appears on the Internet.

As a search/indexing engine, we enable users to find all sorts of audio. We can't be responsible for what people post on their blogs, and we can't be responsible for what you do with it when you find it.

The search/indexing interface contains links to other weblogs/websites. The Hype Machine neither controls nor endorses these web sites, nor reviews or approves any content appearing on them. The Hype Machine does not assume any responsibility or liability for any materials available at these web sites, or for the completeness, availability, accuracy, legality or decency of these sites.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the "DMCA") provides recourse for copyright owners who believe that material appearing on the Internet infringes their rights under U.S. copyright law. If you believe in good faith that materials we link to infringe your copyright, you (or your agent) can contact us requesting that we remove the links to the material.

The designated e-mail address for these communications is abuse@hypem.com


DISCLAIMER

Please note that this is a work in progress, so strange things are absolutely bound to happen. If something is amiss, let us know! Comments, questions, rants and love are always welcome.

WHO'S BEHIND THIS?


PRESS

"breathlessly described to me as the future of all media"
— John Heilemann for Business 2.0 Magazine

"You are the reason I go online"
— Victoria Hesketh (Little Boots)

"My favorite site on the Internet"
— Perry Farrell (Jane's Addiction)

"It's like listening to the iPod shuffle that the zeitgeist carries around in his pocket"
— Downhill Battle

"A live index and music-streaming station consisting of whatever's being talked about on MP3 blogs"
— Eliot Van Buskirk for Wired

"probably the best place to gauge which artists and tracks are being zipped around the crowded music blogosphere"
— Idolator

"gold mine of MP3 blogs"
— digital music weblog

"All musical life is here but with the normal hierarchy of popularity completely reversed"
— Trevor Baker for The Guardian

Interesting discussions about the nature of The Hype Machine at: Stereogum, GrapeJuicePlus, Micropersuasion, Easy Listener, Good Hodgkins

DEMOGRAPHICS

Hypem.com is a top 6,000 site that reaches over 927K monthly uniques, of which 366K (44%) are in the U.S. The site is popular among a more male, fairly wealthy, youthful, more educated crowd.

View full demographics information

THANK YOU

For Being Awesome (in no order):

For excellent service:

For helping out in the beginning with donations:

  • John Muller
  • Antonio Ignacio Olivares
  • Kate Horan
  • John Schimmel
  • Jeremy Fink
  • Reza Shirazi
  • Johan Helmstead
  • Daniel Morgridge
  • Jochen Ade
  • Henrik Andersson