Hype Machine Churns Out the Hits

Hype Machine is an amazingly simple website that answers one question very well;  Which tracks are being covered most by music blogs over the past three days?

The result is a very easy to understand and access set of charts that should put Billboard magazine to shame.

Beyond being an solid source for the popular music being covered by thousands of music bloggers, Hype Machine also has a player built into the bottom of their page which preloads with the song at the top of the particular chart you’ve selected.  Chart options include; Latest, Popular, Radio and Spy.  While Latest and Popular should be self-explanatory, Radio is actually monitoring songs beings played by online stations.  Spy is simply collecting random mp3 tracks from the music blogs being frequently checked – consider your “feeling lucky” option.

While I’ve only visited the Hype Machine a few times, most of the music I’ve heard has been heavy on the dance, remixes and mash-ups.  I will not claim to be an expert on current musical trends, but there may be some genres left out of their blog rotation.  One of the important elements that should be understood is the SEARCH function.  Type in an artist you know and not only will you find tracks available for both streaming and downloading, but you’ll also find references to other SIMILAR sounding artists.  A sound way to discover new sounds.

We will use this resource, along with other tools, to help us target the most popular music blogs to review.

-pjc