Hype Machine is struggling to stay online, and that’s a shame
I went to college at a strange time for the music industry. Napster had already come and gone, digital music stores like iTunes and Amazon Music were growing quickly, and the big streaming sites were just getting popular. While there were file sharing options out there for acquiring new music, there was one site that I turned to anytime I was looking for something new and interesting: Hype Machine. Unfortunately, the site recently announced that it’s turning to crowdfunding to survive, and is hoping that its users will chip in to keep the site running.
The late 2000s marked a time of trial and error for musicians trying to figure out how to market themselves in the digital age, and Hype Machine distinguished itself as a place to discover...