Machine Shop: The Hype Machine Team Blog

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The top tracks and most-blogged artists of 2012 have been revealed, and now we want to hear from you—which albums will you remember the year by?

We’ve partnered with Tumblr to create GIFs of 75 releases that music bloggers have been talking about this year. Visit the Zeitgeist Tumblr and like or reblog to vote for your favorites in the ultimate list of the best music of 2012.

Voting closes on December 20.

(Special thanks to Mr. GIF, Flux Machine, Max Capacity, and Scorpion Daggerfor the GIFs)

Zeitgeist 2012 is LIVE!

We have some good stuff for you this year, as always:

Top 50 Artists: We looked at all the blog data we collected this year to generate the Top 50 Artists chart.  Then, we reached out to 50 amazing visual artists to make this beautiful chart.  Check out the art, hear a sample track by each artist, and find out more about their most recent record.

Top 50 Tracks: We looked at the most favorited tracks of 2012, gave these lists to a few awesome artists like The Hood Internet and Major Lazer (plus more coming later in the week). They drew on these tracks to create custom Zeitgeist Mixes. You can also find these on your iPhone in the “Radio Show” section of the app.

Top Albums: We’ve partnered with Tumblr to create GIFs of 75 releases that music bloggers have been talking about this year. Visit the Zeitgeist Tumblr and reblog the animated covers to vote for your favorites in the ultimate list of the best music of 2012.

Voting closes on December 20th, do it!
And if this is not enough for you, Largehearted Boy is maintaing his massive List of Lists, as usual.

Finally, if you are in NY, join us on December 8th at the Brooklyn Night Bazaar for an evening of music, album GIFs,and excellent holiday shopping.

Thanks for being with us in 2012!

This week, we are starting to work with not one but two of our favorite teams on the Internet!  In addition to Spotify, we are launching a beta of our partnership with VHX.tv, a beautiful way for artists and filmmakers to distribute their work.  Jamie, Casey & the rest of the team have been crafting amazing video experiences for years, so we are excited to play with their tech in the world of music and blogs.

While listening to our popular page, and watching our favorite video sites, we’ve wondered: what are the most interesting videos on the music blogs we monitor?

So we thought to find out, and we made HMTV: a constantly evolving chart of the most popular videos on music blogs, all wrapped in a slick VHX.tv player, and complete with a lights-out mode.  Have a look!

This is just a first revision of this experience, much more is to come.

As VHX.tv begins to distribute more video by musicians, we are thrilled to support them in developing this new revenue stream for creators.

We’ve been Spotify fans since 2008. There was just one office in a busy part of Stockholm filled with crafty developers and dreamers, probably the longest private beta we’ve ever seen, and much-coveted beta invites. It has been fun watching the product turn from daring (“Why would you have an app stream all your music, instead of a website, in 2006?”) to world-changing (“Oh, how can you not?”)

We’ve also been carefully watching the awesome apps that have been popping up in the Spotify App Finder in the past few months. Pretty much all of our favorite web projects and magazines now have an app! We noticed, too, that there hasn’t been a way for music blogs to be visible in this new world of subscription music.

That’s why we are really excited to release the first version of Hype Machine in the Spotify App Store. It’s a fresh way to be introduced to music blogs, all within Spotify, and drawing upon the impressive catalog they have assembled over the years. You can find blogs by genre or by name, and every few days we feature a blog out of the 800+ we monitor to give them additional spotlight.

We figured to start with the first two music blogs that were ever indexed by the Hype Machine back in 2005: Music for Robots (blog id: 1) and Fluxblog (blog id: 2). Thanks, Matthew, Mark & David!

Stay tuned for more featured blogs every few days, and more updates to the app. Give it a try and let us know what you think!

Last week, I emailed all the attendees of our SXSW party with photos and a recap of what happened. I also asked for feedback and here is a message I got from one of our guests:

The Hype Hotel gave me the best week of my life. I was there until closing almost every night of the week. I had a few romances, saw some amazing bands I had never heard before, saw some of my favorite bands, drank my face off, ate way too many tacos, swore off ever eating tacos again, ate even more tacos, swore off ever drinking Monster, drank more Monster, nearly passed out on top of the mountain of ice in the back at least a half dozen times after raging. You guys rock for organizing such an amazing week.

My top highlight was the last night (after 6 nights of raging, mind you). Wavves were taking the stage and I turned to my friend Dave and said, “Dave, do you have enough in you for one more?” He smiled back, and said, “No.” Which definitely meant yes. We began pushing our way to the front and every time someone tried to stop us I would tell him, “I’m going to rage. Do you want to rage with me?” They would say no and let me pass. Finally, one guy had the balls to say “Fuck yeah.” And we all pushed as close to the front as we could.

Right as the band began to play we started dancing like idiots and pushing into people. It was the last night and we completely gave no fucks whatsoever. I had been in so many audiences where people just wanted to stand around while I wanted to move and they would push me and give me glares, and I was absolutely not going to see that on my last night. We were not going to allow a single person to stand in the front and suck the energy out of the band. We were going to match their intensity and amplify it back at them. In the beginning, no one wanted to have fun except one or two people. A bunch of pricks had brought their girlfriends to the front and didn’t want anyone to bump into them despite the fact that they were at a fucking ROCK show!

I had at least 6 drinks thrown into my face by the second or third song (which was a blessing because they were cold and I was hot as balls). I ran into a random co-worker and even he was not allowed to stand idle. I learned later that some ornery guy was ready to beat my ass for bumping into him, but my co-worker told him I had Asperger’s. A few people saw the fun in what we were doing, but most people just wanted to stand there nodding like a bunch of bobbleheads.

Then, finally, this one giant guy saw the fun we were trying to create and the trouble we were having and he bulldozed into the audience, clearing an 8 ft circle. At this point we controlled the space. People were still shoving us in anger, but the tide had turned. Mainly it was those pricks trying to protect their girlfriends, but their girlfriends weren’t pussies like them and they started to jump into the pit. We started to reach critical mass. And this was a GOOD pit, too. Not one of those thrashy metal pits, but a pit where everyone in it just wants to move as one and jump and just give themselves up to the motion of the audience as they try to physically emulate the music. If anyone started to fall 10 hands would catch them. We were not allowing any douchey shit.

Once those girls who were being “protected” started to join in, their prickhead boyfriends were shamed into joining in, too. And then even one of the guys who threw a drink in my face was joining in. And then that same guy was crowd surfing. And then the band was crowd surfing. And someone passed them a flask (okay it was Dave, but don’t tell anyone). Someone else passed them a joint. If they tried to stop and tune their instruments we screamed at them to play out of tune. It was madness. Pure madness in the best sense possible. I knew it was amazing when I saw the normally boring people in VIP jumping the barrier to join us. And then the band really cranked it up. They really picked up the energy from us and just gave it back in spades.

Afterwards, completely soaked through with sweat (pants and everything) I walked outside and faceplanted on the giant ice pile. I’m pretty sure I melted through the entire thing, leaving a human-shaped hole in the middle of it. I was absolutely exhausted. I’ve never had more fun in a week and I may not have ever had more fun in a night. It was one of the most magical moments I think I will ever experience – a house full of people doing nothing more than going wild to some awesome music. Later, the band tweeted at us for being such a good audience.

You guys rock. Can’t wait until next year.

Forever yours,
Sean

This is why we make the Hype Machine. Thanks for joining us.