[Berlin] In a savvy move, SoundCloud are to partner with music portal The Hype Machine to let labels and artists service music bloggers – a key component of the music scene now – with new and pre-release tracks.
The Hype Machine is going to be able to aggregate the output of blogs, but more importantly the bloggers get official releases without having to be forced to release an MP3 into the wild. In addition labels/artists can track listens and pull analytics on who and how the content is being consumed, as tracks get released. Since labels and bloggers haven’t traditionally got on, this move is potentially a lot more productive for both sides.
Bloggers will be able to embed a range of players from the Berlin-based SoundCloud allowing them to promote the music of their favourite artists using the tracks that were originally uploaded.
Domino are the first label to sign up as well as artists including Massive Attack, Marina and the Diamonds, and Delphic.
The Hype Machine aggregates thousands of handpicked music blogs across the web and is really fun to visit because of is incredible ability to curate music genres. You should try it, it’s great.
Here’s a quick interview I did with Alexander Ljung of SoundCloud at the DLD conference, who explains how it’ll all work: