"The Hype Machine follows music blog discussions. Every day, thousands of people write about the music they love -- and it all ends up here."
Hypem is one of the cleanest, user-friendly music sites on the internet. It is an aggregate/search engine for mp3s. Only tracks that have been posted by one of the site's menu of music blogs -- ranging from major pages like Brooklyn Vegan, Stereogum, and Pretty Much Amazing, to the litany of smaller niche-blogs (i.e. Motel de Moka) -- are posted. Hypem is a mix of search engine, social network, music player, with a dash of 'Sound of the Underground.'
Users can create accounts and track their 'Favorites' -- blogs, songs, other users, etc. The site has a built-in music player that sits across the base of the screen and is user-generated running playlist. So you have the luxury of actually hearing a song before you fully commit to downloading it. The search results include the song, artist, date, summary of, and link to the original blog post.
Other user-friendly features/filters: the "all blogs/top 25 music blogs" search filter. It's great to have options, but sometimes you just want to know what the kids are listening to, and what bubblegum they're chewing; the 'most blogged artists' sidebar on the home page; the 'most plays'/'most favorites' tab which tracks the most popular hypem tracks, but drops songs over 3 days old to maintain freshness; built in 'world live web radio' feature: enough said.
It's fun, fresh, and free -- which is even more fiscally responsible than cheap.
Watch this space.
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