FROM THE SUBMITHUB ARCHIVES | #HI54MIXCDS
Submithub gets a bad rep for being a good place for artists to feel the bad vibes of rejection. And it's true, there is a lot of music getting rejected on Submithub.
But that's also because there is a shit tonne of music being submitted on there. In my first 15 months of using SubmitHub as a blog, TWENTY THOUSAND songs were sent to my submission queue! Even if all the music I get sent was a good fit for my ears—which it isn't, but let’s just pretend for a second that music taste isn’t a super subjective, always moving target—that would be waaaay too much music for one blog to post about. Talk about oversharing to the point of nobody caring.
So it only makes sense that there is a lot of 'nopes' being handed out on Submithub. But, on the flip side, that means there is also a lot of 'yeps' getting handed out too. Maybe we should focus more on those?
And it is for those reasons that I have started an ongoing playlist made entirely out of all the songs that I've approved from SubmitHub queue (which kinda turns into a mix of all the other 'mix cds' I make). So, if you fancy the sounds of that…
… it would probably be a good idea to press the "follow" button over on Spotify so you can get future updates auto-magically appearing on your listening device (also, the embedded player above only shows 100 tracks, and there’s waaaay more than 100 in there). Plus "following" a playlist makes for easy repeat shuffle discoveries + I will continue to add new tracks on the regular (& if you'd like to submit your music for HI54 headphone consideration, submission info is over here). And, as always, when you hear something you like, do the universe some good and support/check those artists out further (every little bit helps).
Speaking of which, here’s a few ‘available-on-Bandcamp’ gems that are currently featured in this Spotify playlist:
But they’re not the only tracks you could go from discovering on Spotify to directly supporting on Bandcamp, so this seems like a good time to either remind or inform you that Hype Machine made a handy online tool that’ll try and find the Bandcamp links for all the tracks in any given Spotify playlist — so just grab the link for any Spotify playlist that you’d like to see which artists you can directly support on Bandcamp, and then pop that link into the Merch Table.
Unfortunately, not all the tracks from a Spotify playlist will be available on Bandcamp as some artists/labels still don’t make their music available on Bandcamp for reasons that escape me + the Merch Table search is not 100% perfect in its searching. So, if Hype Machine’s tool didn’t find a track on Bandcamp that you were really keen on supporting, always remember that “Artist Name Track Name Bandcamp” is a pretty fast & reliable online detective too.
Because the Spotifys of the world are great for discovering and keeping track of music + they allow us to easily choose better soundtracks throughout the day than what corporate FM radio stations used to drill us into submission with before the internet arrived in everyone’s pocket, but the way creators are paid out with streaming is just not very good at all —ESPECIALLY in comparison to what others are making off providing easy access to their art.
Ideally, smart artist/human-minded people will start making some more momentum towards coming up with a better/fairer streaming model (here’s my contribution to the dialogue), but, for now, us appreciators of creativity/good things need to start doing a better job of being more mindful of making sure we’re continuing to show direct support to the creation of the good things we like. And Bandcamp is still one of the best online places going for intentionally & directly supporting the makers of the music you like, in an exchange that benefits all sides (ie. because you’re also getting music to go along with that good feeling of passing on something appreciated to someone you appreciate, on a service where the people behind it seem like pretty good people). Who knows, maybe you’ve even got a poetic #Fandcamp review in you for an album out there?
So, I will keep a Buy Music Club list going for all the tracks that get added to my SUBMITHUB ARCHIVE Spotify playlist this year that are also available on Bandcamp (at the time of me checking) — so go check those out whenever you find yourself wanting to reward your ears while also sending out support to those who help keep our lives nicely soundtracked (below is the list for 2022, here was the list for 2021):
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