The best place to find new music on the web. Every day, thousands of people around the world write about music they love — and it all ends up here.
LOADING
0:00
 
 
 
 

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

Join monthly to contribute smaller amounts
Subscribe with Card
Subscribe

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.

I have been listening and sharing music from your site since freshman year in high school (girls loved it when I'd send them good music 😉). Your eclectic aggregation of genres and sounds shaped my world view on what music is and what it could be, so thank you for that!

therise therise

It must have been back in 2009 when my best friend showed me the site and ever since then it’s been my go to site for discovering music. I have vivd memories of me in my basement just scrolling and scrolling, finding new music for myself and my friends, and showing them the site too. It got to the point where for our friend group basically used each others favourites as our de facto party playlists and we’d go through liking all of each others music gaining a collective, community sourced pool of music.

blakezed blakezed

My cousin picked me up from my g mas house and took me to lunch, during the car ride she played THE MOST AMAZING CD I HAVE EVER HEARD all the songs were to amazing, every single one... I asked her where the music came from and that's the first time I ever heard about the best music website I know of. She told me about hypem duh.. :D

ppatches24 ppatches24

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 bee_flowers

His name was Doug. He introduced me to Hype Machine on a first date. He showed me the app in a dive bar when I was trying to decide what to play on the jukebox. (Pre-touch tunes.) I've been hooked ever since. I can lose hours scrolling thru my feed searching for the next new track to add to my favorites.

shycu shycu

I have found countless favorite songs/artists thanks to you. I'm eternally grateful for you guys! Music is such an important part of my life, and the fact that you've provided me a means to discover artists that put their heart and soul into their music is enough for me to support!

foxey_coxey foxey_coxey
More from our supporters

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 2196 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

Want to be notified when the track changes?

Click Allow to get desktop notifications when Hype Machine is in the background.