the hype machine

No, it's not a Web 2.0 business model. Rather, The Hype Machine is an audio blog aggregator and perhaps the largest, most overwhelming mp3 site yet. It is also my pick of the day.

Each second the ingenious THM crawler scours the web for new music file postings and then enters these new finds on the front page. The end result is more than 300 entries a day each and every day. They post much faster than I can listen (and that really disturbs me).

To figure out how good the music is, I decided to audition all 388 tracks listed yesterday, Jan 25. My initial plan was less ambitious, but when it comes to music I am compulsive. Fortunately, they have an excellent flash player that queues 75 songs at a time. It also has a fast forward button to skip through the cr*p.

THM's selections are eclectic and range from the old and forgotten to the new and unreleased. In no particular order, here are the some I thought you might like along with links to the blogs that discuss and host them:

Behind - Lacquer (read post)
Husky Rescue - New Light of Tomorrow (read post)
Neko Case - Star Witness (read post)
Cat Power - Lived In Bars (read post)
Belinda Bruce - Falling Star (read post)
Joseph Arthur - In The Sun (read post)
Fashionmagazine - The Cold (read post)
Miles Davis - Yesterdays (read post)
Seu Jorge - Fiore De La Citta (read post)
Marigold - Champion of the Spelling Bee (read post)
Wilco - Outtasite (Outta Mind) (read post)
Mock Turtles - Can You Dig It? (read post)
Bristopher Crowder - Untitled 8 (read post)
The Minor Canon - Good Luck (read post )
Rocky Votolato - White Daisy Passing (read post)
The Elected - Would You Come With Me (read post)
Jim Noir - the only way (read post)
Cloud Cult - Breakfast With My Shadow (read post)
Mighty Six Ninety - Keeping You in Mind (read post)
Morningwood - nth degree (read post)

Unfortunately, there are no rating or categorization systems to make browsing easier, but THM does have three very helpful features that I wanted to highlight. First, you can search. Type in a song, band, etc. and get links to all the files it has found. Second, you can check out the most popular page. Third, you can listen to music lists by blog. For example, click here to listen to everything new from Motel de Moka. My advice: check out The Hype Machine.