The Internet's growth in influence has improved our lives dramatically in a multitude of ways. One of these improvements we may take for granted is the growth of independent music, and people’s ability to hear an enormous variety of groundbreaking genres and artists. With sites like YouTube, SoundCloud and Bandcamp, the internet has let independent music unleash its entrepreneurial power. The newest addition to help level the playing field between established and independent music is an app called Hive, based out of Cincinnati.
Hive is a music discovery platform where users, whether they’re an artist seeking to expose their music to a highly focused group of music lovers, or they’re a fan of the next big undiscovered star, can share their favorite new song each week with other users. Each week, Hive utilizes the user and artist submitted songs to present each of its users with 50 new songs in 30 second previews that can be swiped right to be added to a personal playlist, or swiped left to pass. Though any kind of music genre is welcome on Hive, the most popular genres are newer independent hip-hop, electronic music of various sub-genres, and indie. The more songs people engage with, the better Hive can curate the right songs for them. Artists have a wonderful new way to make connections, because Hive interacts with music labels to show them the rising artists. Music labels benefit from Hive by gaining access to tons of artists who could potentially grow their lineup, and the artists benefit from Hive with the increased prospects of getting noticed by a record label.
Hive's founders used their experiences and observations to fill a gap in the music industry. In their past experiences, they noticed a general theme that well established people seemed to gain access to success, even if their actual performance was sub-par. Additionally, it seemed the less established people who had no connections, weren’t able to get the attention and opportunities they needed, even if they outperformed the established interests. The Hive founders didn’t want to just talk about this issue; they wanted to confront it. So, they took inventory of their interests, and tapped into their passion for music, which has a highly established, well-connected industry. They asked themselves “What if people could post independent music to a platform, where users can decide for themselves how good the music is?” Thus, the concept for Hive was born, and it grew into a full-fledged app in April of 2016.
Since then, Hive has helped artists reach over 6,000 new listeners each week. When an artist on Hive really makes an impression, Hive presents them to the record labels and others in the music industry to help them build the connections needed to move their career forward. The labels will receive a list of each week's top performing artists along with some data on and contact information for the artists. This is a groundbreaking development in music which presents independent artists with amazing opportunities to connect with record labels.
Hive allows artists gain notoriety, and allows people gain exposure to new and interesting music. Hive is an innovative game changer in the music world.
