A TON of fresh, new, independent music: Welcome Jamendo!

Ladies and Gentlemen music lovers of Whyd, we have a big announcement for you! Today we’re proud to welcome another platform that is a treasure chest of independent music from all over the world. 

Having been around since 2004, Jamendo has been a home for independent musicians who are seeking alternatives to the traditional structure of music distribution. Jamendo helps artists reach new fans, license their music, and synchronize their tracks with advertisements, corporate videos, or even cinema. Jamendo’s emerging, innovative artists are exactly the type of musicians that Whyd music lovers will be happy to discover, scratching that remote itch in the back of the ear that comes from having unequaled music appetites. 

Now you can add any track you want from Jamendo, either with the [+ Add Track] button on the site or with the bookmarklet. We’re counting on you to help share these artists get their music out to the world! 

We encourage you to go and start exploring Jamendo now, as we will be launching a playlist contest next week featuring music from the platform. To get you started, here’s a Whyd playlist put together by the audiophiles on the Jamendo team! 

Never stop jamendoing! 

From The GroundSounds Up: Culture From LA And Beyond

GroundSounds is rapidly emerging as a popular destination for culture heads: what’s the average reader/viewer/listener of GroundSounds like?

The average reader/viewer/listener of GroundSounds varies, however most are avid music listeners who love to discover new musicians, bands, and artists. Our readers come to GroundSounds to read about emerging trends, watch exclusive video interviews, and musical performances. If you’re a creative mind looking for inspiration, come to GroundSounds. 

Jon, how did your background in entertainment media lead you to where you are today, and what are you doing differently than everyone else? 

If it wasn’t for my media background I wouldn’t know how to run and operate GroundSounds efficiently and effectively. I have gained a lot of skills working for various media outlets, as well as many industry contacts that have helped my journey along the way. GroundSounds video content definitely helps to separate us from the bunch, not many music blogs are on red carpets getting exclusive info, and the ones that are tend to focus on talking to already established acts, while we are focusing on the “little guys,” the musicians or bands that everyone tends to skip over. I feel that our attention to up-and-coming musicians as well as emerging artists is definitely giving us an edge. GroundSounds is also operated out of pure passion, this is not a job - I think this aspect has a profound impact on what we are becoming, it is coming from a very pure and genuine state of being. 

Tell us about the team: who is the best at chess, who knows about the most obscure bands, and who do your readers like the most? 

The team is amazing, GroundSounds would not be possible without the team! As far as chess is concerned I’m not certain, however when it comes to finding diamonds in the rough (amazing obscure bands) Brendon Goldwasser definitely gives the team a run for their money. However, I should add that Jake Craney isn’t too bad either! Big shout outs to the rest of the team Danielle Turner, Tahsan Scott, Tim Gadient, Ryan Cornelius, Emily Vargas, Bigg A.D., Tessie Navarro, Jolie Doggett - each and everyone of them bring so much to the table. 

LA is famous for two motifs in music: sun and angst. Which one will rule in 2014? Are musicians feeling positive or jaded? 

While it is extremely easy to become jaded in LA, we don’t have time for that! We keep things moving with positivity and a bright outlook, as do many musicians and bands, we hope they keep it that way! 

Interview with Underground Playlist

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1. Tell us about the minds behind Underground Playlist, where does your inspiration come from? 

I started the Underground Playlist in January of 2010 realizing that there were many worthy up-and-coming artists out there not getting enough recognition. Newer artists were also greatly affected by the challenges the music industry were facing during the recession so it seemed especially appropriate considering the circumstances. I decided every week to post 5 new songs by new artists. I felt where many blogs were posting about popular artists this was a chance to offer unique content where the majority of the artists we feature are relatively unknown yet deserve as much recognition as the popular artists do. 

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2. What type of music do you present in your playlists?

Underground Playlist features new music by new artists. Whether it’s Indie, Electronic, Pop, Hip Hop, Rock, or any other genre, if it sounds compelling and it’s from a new artist we’re all about it.

In the past we’ve been lucky enough to feature eventual hit songs months before they reached top status. Some in particular come to mind like B.o.B ft. Bruno Mars “Nothin’ On You”, Havana Brown “We Run The Night”, Cher Lloyd “Want U Back”, Kirko Bangz “Drank In My Cup” among others. Every now and then we come into songs of this stature and it is really cool to follow these artists as they reach newer heights in their career.

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3. You’re now up to 171 playlists (with 172 right around the corner), how do you keep it up?

The way music and social media have mesh together it has allowed blogs and everyday music fans more access to discovery. If you look in the right places you’ll find a goldmine of undiscovered talent. Whether its looking under certain Twitter hashtags, searching extensively on YouTube and now Whyd, the process of discovery has given us plenty of choices to select music for our playlists. 

An important aspect of our selection is that we make sure not to focus on necessarily being the first person to discover an artist but rather focus on featuring a quality playlist of music by new artists even if it’s a month or two young. Like we’ve seen with Baauer’s “Harlem Shake” in some cases it can take up to a year for a hit song to gain recognition but if the song has potential that new artists deserves to have their work featured at any point as whatever ounce of press they receive can only help them in their journey as an artist. 

Another driving force is realizing in some cases it’s the first or second time an artist has been featured in their career and they’ll tweet or email us to send a thank you and that feedback makes us feel like we are making a difference whether big or small for these artists which just adds to the fuel of discovery for us. 

4. The design of your site is very unique, where did you get the idea?

We feel it’s important to have a simple yet unique design to allow our visitors to navigate easily and most importantly keep their focus on the artist and their music. Being able to allow our visitors to listen and easily purchase the music we select is also another aspect to our site that is equally important to us.

We’ve also implemented a shared calendar powered by SpinGo that allows fans to easily search through a wide database of concerts and music events submitted by people from all around the world. Brand new to our site is the Whyd subscribe badge located at the footer of each page where you can access an exclusive monthly version of our playlist that we’ll update periodically during the month.  

In all, our design is geared to give the artists we feature as much visibility as possible and fans the availability to purchase their music and tickets to theirs shows.

A big thank you to Whyd and be sure to subscribe to us!

Thank you guys! Follow Underground Playlist on Twitter and make sure to Like their Facebook page too!