Support Today
Our service is listener-supported. Read about this campaign.
Your contributions:
- Keep Hype Machine running
- Help us build things
- Remove all ads
- More supporter features
-
Night Mode
Supporter-only group playlist
Full Stack archives
Time Machine (popular charts since '07)
Spy (see loved tracks in real time)
Deeper search options - $6+ comes with stickers
- Keep Hype Machine running
- Help us build things
- Remove all ads for a year
- More supporter features for a year
-
Night Mode
Supporter-only group playlist
Full Stack archives
Time Machine (popular charts since '07)
Spy (see loved tracks in real time)
Deeper search options - $70+ comes with stickers
1 Supporter
Current goal: 3000 monthly supporters will allow us to continue running Hype Machine.
Initial goal complete! 1000 monthly supporters won't cover our expenses, but it's the first step towards Hype Machine becoming a sustainable service.
Do your friends use Hype Machine? Tell them about this campaign.
Wow, I can't believe I've been listening to Hype Machine for almost 7 years. This website has been an integral part of my musical adventure (and my personal soundtrack) for so many years!
yacoutamia
I was first shown the hype machine by a DJ friend of mine almost a decade ago and I am eternally grateful for the best music discovery website ever! Thanks for introducing me to the latest and freshest music out there.
ava_rose
My family was very conservative and by age of 15 about 50% of all the songs I knew were hymns. Many people in my generation (born in '92) went through the 90's music, knew the 80's rock from their parents, the 70's, etc,... It all passed by me. I clearly remember finding hype machine and the plethora of 'fresh dub' that put be ahead of all my other friends in a listening sense for the first time in my life. I was suddenly a hub of cool knowledge with a music base where I previously was more akin to a 70 year old.
faja92
It's crazy that 7 years my roommate in college recommended I check out this "Hype Machine" site, and that move single-handedly changed the way I discovered music. Even my most memorable moments at SXSW were crafted by the Hype Machine team at the Hype Hotel, supporting your site was the least I could do with all the musical value you've brought to my life :)
milllz
I was doing web development and my coworker starting listening to Kid Cudi's "Pursuit of Happiness" on a what I thought then was a way too complicated web site for me. It wasn't until a few years later that I felt I could muster the technique and musical avorice to be worthy of the site. I thought the free iPhone app was a revelation. 4 years of free listening and 1000+ favorites later I get in my car and put my app on shuffle and I'm blessed by the music I have curated for myself over the past four years.
bee_flowers
Fund Hype Machine
Hype Machine has been introducing people to new music since 2005. Let’s keep it going.
Photo: Victoria Masters
We are a team of three—an independent company without investors. Most of our revenue comes from ads on the desktop site, but due to changes in online advertising, this is no longer enough to support the service. Read more
Join 2199 supporters.Fund Hype Machine →
How did we get here?
Hype Machine was built in a college dorm room in 2005, and over the years has grown into a dedicated community of music fans. We are a team of three—an independent company without investors. Most of our revenue comes from ads on the desktop site, but due to changes in online advertising, this is no longer enough to support the service.
We’ve been amplifying the work of emerging musicians, writers, and communities for the last 15 years. Remaining independent has allowed us to make the kind of product we want to use ourselves: focused, playful, and in line with our ideas about what’s ethical. (We don’t collect or sell user data or emails, for example.)
What does Hype Machine do?
Hype Machine tracks music that people are talking about. We index hundreds of publications, handpicked as trusted voices in the global conversation about music. Our thinking is that if one of them liked something enough to write about it, it’s worth a listen.
Every track indexed ends up on the Latest page, whether it’s published by a site with 20,000 followers or 20. Listen and you might stumble into your new favorite song, a style of music you hadn't heard before, or an artist that was way off your radar.
Music is more accessible now than ever before thanks to streaming services. That’s great! We use them too. What makes Hype Machine unique is how we approach discovery—finding new and unfamiliar sounds through the lens of the writers in our index. Because sometimes, the most exciting stuff is just outside our listening habits.
How did it start?
In 2005, music discussion was dominated by a handful of large print magazines. Blogs emerged to cover a broader range of music beyond the top commercial releases of the day, spreading the conversation across thousands of sites.
Hype Machine brought all these posts together in one place for easy streaming. Built as a personal project, it quickly caught on with curious listeners. The following year, Anthony bought the hypem.com domain, moved Hype Machine from the server it shared with his collection of Godspeed You! Black Emperor concert photos, and increased capacity for our growing audience.
We're grateful that Hype Machine has been able to reach so many people over the years. It may seem like a large company from the outside, but it's just the three of us sitting around a kitchen table, answering emails and writing code.
Why are we raising money?
As music experiences on the internet have become more centralized, powered by a handful of large services, they’ve also become more alike. Today, a listener’s choice is between minor interface and catalog differences—a narrow way of interacting with a key part of contemporary culture. We think that people deserve a multitude of ways of experiencing music, and we’d like to build more of them with your support and feedback.
Crowdfunding is our sole option—online advertising only works well at immense scale (while introducing complex privacy issues), and venture capital prioritizes returns over sustainability.
Your monthly contribution will allow us to keep Hype Machine running, but most importantly, continue creating ways to explore new music. We’ve been thinking about these ideas for many years, and we’re ready to try more of them out with you.
Let's build it together.
—Dave, Zoya, and Anthony