Whyd Spring Playlist Contest

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It’s that time of the year again! When the warm temperatures defrost our shuddering bones and drinks start to be consumed outside. Tracks are laid down, volumes go up. 

And so, it is without further ado that we announce the Whyd #Spring Playlist Contest, a two week competition to see who can make the funkiest, hippest playlist that represents the spring, and the potential of 2014 in general. 

Here’s how it works: 

  • Make a playlist titled Whyd Spring Playlist on Whyd
  • Create your playlist directly with this link
  • Add at least 8 tracks that reflect the theme of Spring
  • Share your playlist as much as possible on FB and Twitter (mention us @whyd so that we can help you!) and the most shared playlists will be selected as finalists
  • The Whyd team will select a winner who will receive a bottle of rosé and will be featured across the Whyd network! 

The contest starts now and ends on April 22nd, never stop jamming! 

April Fools Day Joke: A Chance To Reaffirm Our Mission

Yesterday’s post nailed it: we pranked the community and said that starting today Whyd would be a $20/month subscription. We scared some people, which means that the April Fools joke totally worked. 

Of course, those who know us saw immediately that we were playing around, Whyd is not going to become some expensive platform for the rich, Whyd is about sharing music, no matter which platform you use, no matter where you are in the world. Music is universal, and so is Whyd. 

As we’ve said over and over again, Whyd is a community, brought together by our common love. Our mission is to create a world wide soundsystem featuring the best of the newest music and the coolest music lovers around. We’re thankful that we’ve already come so far, and we can’t wait to see where we will all go next. 

Never stop jamming

Track of the Weekend #67: Disclosure - “January” (Kaytranada Edit)

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THIS IS KAYTRANADA’S CAT

For the whole week we thought that the powerful combination of Daft Punk and Julian Casablancas, The Strokes frontman whose pleasantly drunken, Lower East Side lyrics make for a melancholic, auto-tuned romp alongside the steady pop beats of the French electro-power duo. But no, no, it doesn’t happen like that on Whyd. 

In a surge of popularity, Kaytranada's edit of Whyd favorites Disclosure’s track “January" bubbled right to the top of the Hot Tracks in the nick of time, solidifying its place as the Track of the Weekend and giving Disclosure their 4th Track of the Weekend. Kaytranada - the Haitian-born, Canadian electronic artist - strips the track down, exposing it for what it is, before rebuilding it into an infectious bounce that keeps rebounding around the corners of your mind long after you finish listening to it. His new album of remixes drops on December 17th!

Big thanks to our man Scotch for slipping this into our aural drinks!

Never stop jamming! 

Playlist of the Year: The Hottest Tracks on Whyd from 2013

It’s that time of year again, when people frantically try to sum up the events, changes, and developments of entire year in blog posts, articles, and podcasts, and look forward to the year to come. There is no doubt that 2014 is going to be a monumental year for Whyd, and also for streaming music services in general. But now it’s time for one of our favorite things to do as music lovers, present the playlist of the year, featuring Whyd’s Tracks of the Weekend.

2013 was a good year for Woodkid, Flume, and Ryan Hemsworth, relatively new artists that have taken the world by storm with all three netting two Whyd Tracks of the Weekend each. It was also a year of bands returning to the scene, like the obvious Daft Punk but also Whyd favorites Metronomy, Arcade Fire, Arctic Monkeys, Phoenix, and Vampire Weekend. New faces that are still nascent like Man Is Not A Bird, In The Valley Below, and Chamberlain also earned their spots on this playlist, and we look forward to great things to come from all of them.  

Without further ado, the best music from 2013 as determined by our global community of music lovers, PLEASE SHARE AND SHARE WIDELY: 

Track of the Weekend #65: Cashmere Cat - “With Me”

At the beginning of the week, it looked like the cultural force that is Pharrell and the clever idea behind the 24-hour music video were going to rule the hot tracks with the wonderfully positive track “Happy" added by Whyd's guardian angel Mélodie Lily. But that song is destined for greater things — like serious radio play around the world for the near future and maybe even more. 

Music on Whyd move so much faster, and instead it’s the oddly unpredictable “With Me" which gives Cashmere Cat their second track of the weekend, added by world explorer and graphic designer Julie Bénard, “With Me” is deep and sometimes confusing, the the impact is undeniable. 

The Ambitious Mind behind Whitezine, Sayfat & FraisFrais: Meet Joseph Ayoub

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1. Can you introduce yourself? What are the different sides to your personality and how do they show up in your projects?

My name is Joseph, I grew up in Lebanon and I’ve been living for 10 years in France. I’m an entrepreneur doing all kinds of things and sort of a creative person. I don’t have any particular talent but when I am passionate by a subject, I put all the energy driving people, ideas, and work into it, so that it becomes what I want it to be. It fails very often, and succeeds from time to time. 

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2. What is the concept for FraisFrais? What about its music side? 

FraisFrais was born about six months ago in my mind. I used to read a web magazine that was clearly directed towards women. I knew a couple of friends around me who used to read it too. So I told myself “we should do this but for men.” It evolved to become what it is, a place where my friends and I drop some posts about culture, lifestyle, food, buzz, and what makes our own world go round. And of course, music is a big part of our world. All the people who worked with us on the project love music. I personally cannot stand a day without music. It was more than obvious that we were going to talk about music on it. 

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3. What about Whitezine? When did you start that project and who should check out the site? 

Whitezine started about five years ago now. I used to have another smaller blog with a cool editorial line. When I sold tha tblog, I knew I wanted to do something more, something maybe bigger or that could talk to more people. So I created Whitezine, a place for trends when it comes to digital art and fashion. It has been in French and English since day one, gathering dozens of writers and millions of readers since it was created. 

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4. What should we look forward to from you in 2014? 

I love creating stuff. In 2009 I created Whitezine and in 2013 I created a T-shirt brand called Sayfat. But for 2014 I’ll probably be focusing on being sustainable in the company I just launched (an agency for online brand communication). Whitezine, FraisFrais & Sayfat are now part of this company, hopefully by 2014 I’ll still be alive and have some people working with me on cool projects. 

Make sure to subscribe to Joseph on Whyd to keep up with his latest musical discoveries! 

Something Big is Coming…

You might have noticed that not very much has changed at Whyd over the past few months, and that there haven’t been any major announcement emails blasted across our community. But that is going to change very, very soon. 

We have been hard at work improving the platform, optimizing the features we have, and of course adding new functionality that will be arriving in the near future. 

For everyone who has stuck with us since the very beginning a year and a half ago, thank you for your support. For everyone who has joined us since then, thank you for your kind works and encouragement. For everyone who sent in feedback, reported bugs, offered suggestions and came to our events to meet us, thank you. None of this would have been possible without you. 

So stay tuned, the ride is about to get a lot more exciting, and we’re glad to have you all with us. 

Never stop jamming! 

Benin City’s Headlining Show: October 30th @ Electrowerkz

For those us you who have been with us for a while, you definitely know Benin City (read the Whyd interview here) London’s electro-brass trio that is rapidly taking the UK by storm. Since they burst on the scene, they have received high acclaim, including the Huffington Post calling them “one of the UK’s most exciting bands.”

Their unique style is infectious: pulsating brass alongside dazzling lyrics that combine to form a sound so complete it’s impossible not to get stuck in your head. Their latest single “Wha Gwan,” signifying a common greeting similar to “What’s up,” is a must-listen. 

So it is no surprise that on October 30th, they will perform for the first time as the headliners at a concert at Electrowerkz. If you’re in London, this is one show that is not to be missed!

Congrats guys and good luck!! 

#AperoMusicTech 4 RECAP

It was a warm night in Paris last week as we presented the fourth installment of our #AperoMusicTech networking series at Workshop Paris. We had some of the mega Whyd family members, like this picture above featuring R∆D∆R!, Sabrina, and Albin. Very cool to get everyone together again! 

As the night progressed, we arrived at the happy sounds of Brooklyn Bitches and R∆D∆R! spinning nu-disco and eletro-pop all night in the downstairs area which has come a long way since the first time we were there back in February. 

And of course, there was the exciting gift given to the first 50 people who came: the first ever Whyd sticker in support of our boys at BPM: Le Blog des Pépites Musicales. The instructions were simple: take the sticker and put it in a funny place. Take a photo of the sticker, and send it to us. The funniest situation gets a home made Sushi dinner at Tony’s place. Share it with the hashtag #neverstopjamming. 

A huge thanks to everyone who came, to our co-sponsors at BPM and of course to the dudes who spun amazing music all night. See you next time! 

#AperoMusicTech #4 Goes Live on Thursday Night!

Lot of fun events happening in Paris this weekend and next week, the crown jewel being the lovely get-together that has become the #AperoMusicTech event series. The fourth installment, taking place Thursday evening at WorkShop starting at 19hr30, will feature a few of Whyd's staple DJs: the Brooklyn Bitches tandem and R∆D∆R! spinning their signature blends of nu disco — the performances are not to be missed!

The event is being co-sponsored by another one of the Whyd faithful, the playlist music blog BPM (Blog des Pépites Musicales) and for the first time, we will be giving out stickers to the 50 people who come to the event first with special instructions that you will find out about only if you are lucky enough to get a sticker. So come, and get there as soon as you can! 

Never stop jamming!