We use our wireless Sonos speakers every day. This is why we’re excited to finally bring a much more complete Hype Machine experience to these devices.
Today’s update includes:
• Favorites: now with your three playlists (Up, Down, Weird)
• Album premieres: hear our exclusive album streams
• Stack
: our weekly mix of interesting new music
• Friends: favorites from the people you follow
• Zeitgeist
: the most-blogged artists each year since 2008
• Special Features: the place for various artist spotlights like Ones to Watch
• Elegant icons for easy naviation
To add Hype Machine to your Sonos, open your Controller, go to Add Music Services > Hype Machine.
If there are more features you’d like to see, do let us know!
For the past year, Hype Machine has sent out Stack, a weekly newsletter highlighting some of the most interesting new tracks we see on the site. It’s an easy way to keep tabs on what’s exciting in music right now, and we think it’ll be even more fun to experience in person.
Stack Live is a series of shows coming to Chicago, Boston, and Brooklyn this fall, featuring performances from blog favorites like Kero Kero Bonito, Pure Bathing Culture, GEMS, Sepalcure, and more.
RSVP/find tickets here.
With more than half of 2015 behind us, it’s time for the latest Ones To Watch. This feature takes a look at the most blogged artists of the year so far and identifies the names newest to the set—the ones who made their biggest splash in recent months…the ones to keep an eye on. We apply two simple qualifiers: it’s the artist’s first appearance in the data, and they’ve yet to release a full-length LP. More on the science behind the series here.
It’s fun to revisit past features and spot names that went from went from the pages of blogs to the posters of major festivals, along with the sounds they introduced: Sam Smith, Tinashe, Yumi Zouma, Years & Years, Gorgon City, Tove Lo, to name a few.
January 2014: Ones To Watch 2014
August 2014: Ones To Watch 2014 ½ with BBC Radio 6 Music
January 2015: Ones To Watch 2015
And now, August 2015: Ones To Watch 2015 ½
Who will stand out a year from now? Share your favorites on Facebook and Twitter, or embed this player on your site:
Hype Machine’s been tracking music discussed on blogs since 2005, bubbling up the most popular tracks of the moment in our Popular charts. We monitor what the Hype Machine community is favoriting, which artists are being posted most frequently, and what’s getting tweeted.
But there was one part of the music landscape we hadn’t been tracking—videos. YouTube, which also launched in 2005, has become the preferred channel for many labels and artists to announce their new releases. Bloggers may have been talking about them, but they weren’t being recognized on Hype Machine—until now.
This is our new Videos chart:
It collects videos being posted most frequently by blogs in our list, and we hope it gives a more complete view of what’s happening in music right now. As usual, you can play the tracks, visit the blogs, and read their posts.
Try it out, let us know what you think!
We’ve been fans of Snapchat forever (I think since early 2013?). We love the room for play that the platform creates, and have been thinking about how to apply the same playful approach to music.
It’s a big question, but for now we’ve made an account: ‘hypem‘, and this weekend, Dave will share a few moments from the amazing FORM Acrosanti festival. Add us by name, or take a snap photo of the image above.
More experiments ahead.