Machine Shop: Hype Machine Team Blog

It’s time: play back the music of 2021 in our 15th annual Zeitgeist!

Each week, we send out our Stack newsletter—a compilation of emerging new music we’re hearing great things about. We’ve selected some standouts, grouped by sound, for a summary of the year. You can play them all in Stack Selects.

As always, we’ve calculated the most-posted Artists in Hype Machine’s index, and the top tracks of 2021 in our community of supporters.

Thank you for listening with us this year.   

Audius tracks are now fully supported throughout Hype Machine! This means that when sites in our index share Audius embeds, they will show up on our website and in our apps (just like tracks hosted on SoundCloud, Bandcamp and Audiomack do).

Audius is a decentralized music service launched in 2019 that is exploring alternative ways to support independent musicians and get their music heard. 

To get started, here’s a feed of the most recently posted Audius tracks.

It’s been a strange year. But the music never disappoints, and Zeitgeist is here with our annual look back at the best sounds of 2020.

Come by our virtual home and check out what’s playing in each room, stacked with selects from our weekly newsletter. We’ve also listed artists that writers in our index were most excited about, and tracks getting the most love from our supporters, for a thorough recap of the year.

In 2020, community support mattered more than ever. If you can, become a supporter to keep Hype Machine running.

Thanks for listening with us.

This is our 15th year on the web! Wow.

Hype Machine is a lot like the three of us when we were 15—completely obsessed with music, and always online. We listen to different stuff now, but that drive to keep searching for new music, through different genres, across decades, recommended by people we’ve never met who share our tastes, that hasn’t changed. If this is where you find your music, chances are, you feel the same.

Hype Machine is here today thanks to the support of our listeners, who kept the service going when we were sure we’d have to shut it down. The community came together and said, there’s still more music to discover. And if that’s important to you too, become a supporter and help us celebrate our next birthday.

Thanks for listening,
Dave, Zoya, and Anthony

Revisit the best music of 2019 in our 13th annual Zeitgeist!

We analyzed our data for artists who made an impression with writers in our index. You can listen in two ways: the 25 Most Posted artists of 2019, and Breakthroughs—the artists making their Zeitgeist debut this year.

Hype Machine is sustained by our community of supporters. And because our supporters are some of the most passionate listeners here, they’re also the best at spotting great new music. You can listen to their top finds in the Tracks playlist. (Supporters always have access to an exclusive Supporter Selects playlist—become a supporter to join in.)

As we reflected on the music that made our year, we wanted to find a way to thank the artists who made it. So we built Merch Table to find and buy your favorite releases on Bandcamp (it works with your favorites, and Spotify playlists as well). We know just how much direct support matters.

Thanks for listening with us this year.