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.
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.
The Zeitgeist is here! Our annual roundup of the 50 most-discussed artists, albums, and songs of 2010 launches today. We’ll reveal 10 every day this week, with the Top 10 being released on Friday. Here’s how we made it:
Top 50 Artists: We’ve tabulated the total number of songs from each band posted in 2010 by blogs on The Hype Machine, and invited 50 visual artists to create illustrations for the musicians. You can view them in glorious full-screen resolution while you sample a track from the band. AND! This year, you can send each gorgeous piece of artwork as a postcard to your friends. It’s the closest you can get to hugging a pixel.
Top 50 Albums: We’ve pored over 950 blogger Top 10 lists (the most to date!) and thousands of albums to calculate the final ranking. Grooveshark kindly provided the full album streams, and we’ve used CC-licensed Flickr Photos for the graphics.
Top 50 Songs: We’re excited to present five new mixes of the year’s top songs, created for us by the artists who were dominating the Popular charts in 2010. We’ll also publish the full list of Top 50 tracks on Friday.
As always, the Zeitgeist is one big community effort. Big thanks to all the music bloggers, who make finding the best new music easier; the illustrators and photographers, who make the Zeitgeist look so good; Jeff from Heart On A Stick, who passed the torch a few years back; David from Largehearted Boy, who is the best at collecting best-of lists; Grooveshark (and @bwc), who power the full album streams, SoundCloud, who power the Hype Machine Radio Show; our incredible friends Cain Norris, Michael Bringardner, Lisa Zuniga, Morgan Kelton, and Emma Tangoren for helping us with data slicing and dicing; the entire Hype Machine team, for working through Christmas and New Year’s, every year, to bring you the Zeitgeist. And you: thank you for always looking for new music to fall in love with.
JAN 8 UPDATE: You can now download the entire data set (in a CSV file) we gathered to make the Top 50 albums list this year. The compiled set [CC License] is a more expanded version of our top 50 list that includes some extras, like the average rank given to an album in each post. The raw set [CC License] has the list of all blog posts we’ve indexed and the albums they’ve selected. Enjoy!
It’s taken us a week to recover, but we’re finally beginning to feel human again! Thank you to the thousands and thousands of people who made it to our party across the 4 days of SXSW Music. Fifty-six hours of music, over 100 bands+djs, 1000 breakfast tacos, and cases upon cases of Vitamin Water and Heineken later, we’ve definitely left a dent in 6th street.
We’ve thrown a few day or night shows in the past, but this was the largest undertaking we have ever been a part of. A lot of things went right, just a couple of things went wrong, and we learned a whole ton of things. We learned that it is difficult to fill up a 1,500 person capacity during the day, when people are still sleeping off the night before. We learned that events are hard. We learned that it all feels worth it when you’re dancing in the middle of a thousand people at midnight, and everybody’s smiling.
We simply couldn’t have done it without the teamwork of:
Black Box Revue, who invited us to be a part of their Lose Control party this year and brought together an amazing group of people who genuinely care about music. The Windish Agency for helping us out with most of the booking, stage plots and logistics. Beatnik and their team for literally being the backbone that kept the whole party together by providing sound, stage, lighting, and a relentless crew who were in it for the long haul. David Schacher and Beef for providing all kinds of logistical help and being troopers through it all. Emily Moore for the amazing photography. NoMathmatics for the incredible Lose Control art.
And what would a Hype Machine party be without music? Serious thanks to all the bands and management that helped make this happen: 12th Planet, Acrylics, Admiral Radley, Asteroids Galaxy Tour, Auto Body, Baby Monster, Bachelorette, Bang Bang Eche, Baron Von Luxxury, Black Box Revue, Body Language, Casiokids, CFCF, Chiddy Bang, Class Actress, Crystal Fighters, The Crystal Method, Crystal Vision, Dances With White Girls, Database, Delorean, Delta Fiasco, Eclectic Method, Eli Smith, Everything Everything, Fenech-Soler, First Aid Kit, Free Magic, French Horn Rebellion, Grrrl Parts, Grammatics, Hey Champ, Hollywood Holt, Home Video, Hottub, Hussle Club, Javelin, Jen Lasher, Keenhouse, Keepaway, Kids At The Bar, Kill The Noise, Lemonade, LexiconDon, Light Pollution, Lucy and the Popsonics, Male Bonding, Megaphonic Thrift, MeLo-X, Michael Parallax, Mickey Factz, Midnight Conspiracy, MillionYoung, Nice Nice, Nick Catchdubs, Nomathmatics, OK Deejays, Rafter, Royal Bangs, Rural Alberta Advantage, Rye Rye, Samuel, Small Black, Solid Gold, Spleen United, Star Eyes, Steed Lord, Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt, The Death Set, The Hood Internet, The Invisible, The Ruby Suns, Tobacco, Tommie Sunshine, Toro Y Moi, Trash Yourself, Treasure Fingers, Two Fresh, Uffie, VDRK, Villains, Wallpaper, We Are Like The Spider, WhoMadeWho, Woodhands, Yacht, Yes Giantess, You Say Party! We Say Die!, Richard Gear, eLstar, Prepmode, A Ward, Mike Townsend, Kook Hersh, Irresponsible Voltron Crew, Hot Britches, Miguel Angel, DJ Cat NYC, Automatic Panic, Mad Classy Crew.
And our sponsors, Vitamin Water, for keeping everyone hydrated during the day. Heineken, for keeping the bands rockin’. Townie Records, for providing the breakfast tacos each day. SoundCloud for providing the WiFi and HypeCloud player, making it easy for bands to share their music with bloggers. And last but definitely not least, Jakprints for providing the banners and 11,000 RSVP laminates.
Our annual Music Blog Zeitgeist 2009 is here. All week we will be publishing the Top Artists/Albums/Songs (10 each day) and on Friday you will find out the top 10 of the year!
The Zeitgeist presents an interesting challenge each year: how do we keep taking things to the next level? This year won’t disappoint. Here’s a rundown:
Top 50 Artists: We tabulated the total number of songs from each band posted in 2009 by blogs on The Hype Machine. Then we invited 50 visual artists to create a new piece of artwork inspired by the band’s music and including the band’s name. The results have absolutely blown us away. If you love a piece, click through and let the artist know!
Top 50 Albums: We collected 550 bloggers’ personal top 10 lists and assigned a total score to each of the 1,313 albums (#1=15 points, #2=14, #3=13…) to get a final ranking. We partnered with Grooveshark to power the full album streams and used CC-licensed Flickr Photos of each band as the background. You can also view the full photo behind each album and explore the individual lists that mention an album.
Top Songs Show: We changed things up a bit this year and presented our list of the most favorited songs of each month as a downloadable radio show. Since this generally skews to the dancier side of things, this is a fantastic mix to keep the party going.
This was truly a community effort and wouldn’t have been possible without the musicians who put out such inspiring music, our own users, the 50 visual artists, the 50 photographers, the 550 bloggers, Jeff fromHeart On A Stick (who passed the torch a few years back), David from Largehearted Boy (who does an insane job at collecting best-of lists), Grooveshark (my Gainesville neighbors powering the album streams), Monika Wensel (the artist behind the fabric art on the splash page), SoundCloud (our Berlin friends powering the Radio Show), Adam and Gregory (for the 1-line review inspiration), our Radio Team (Dev, Abbey, Dan) and of course the rest of our awesome team @ The Hype Machine (Anthony, Zoya, Arkadiy, Scott).
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