I get a good amount of pitches from artists and I’m not the best about responding. I barely read what they have to write (pro tip: keep it short), mainly because they all say the same shit. It’s flattering they’ve found me, but get to know me first. I promise I’ve got good music. And if I don’t, then who gives a shit about me anyways.
The best advice I can give to artists about pitching bloggers is to treat your promoting as an art as much as you do your music. I know you want to spread the net wide, and fast, but you don’t compromise your music to get more fans, so don’t with your relationships to the people that are here to help (sometimes, when they like your music).
This is not to call out Roman Kouder, but his typical marketing strategy clouded his great music. I liked a few of his tracks before, but thanks to Darren of Tipsy Tortoise, I listened to a song on Roman Kouder’s SoundCloud page and kept liking each song after.
A few days ago I had the bright idea of making this list to hold us over until Frank Ocean dropped his album. That day it did.
The reason I love Frank so much, and why I’m overshadowing all these other artists for him, is because there’s a difference between him and them, for me. All of these singers have at least one good song, but it’s the song, not their singing, that I love. With Frank it’s different. I just love hearing his voice. On anything. Few other singers do that for me.
Not to discredit any of these artists. All of them have that potential, especially Breezy Lovejoy. Now known as Anderson .Paak. It took me two years to come out with another list of favorite male singers. Still got a lot of catching up to do compared to my favorite females.
Outside Lands 2016 hosted my long awaited show from The Knocks. I had a run in with one of the members, Patts, on my blog almost six years ago and it was a major influence for what I do on here now.
He didn’t like what I had to say about Chiddy Bang’s remix of The Knocks ‘Dancing With the DJ’ and told me “if you don’t like it don’t post it.” I get what he was saying and as much as I stand by my words, I haven’t posted a single track I haven’t liked since (maybe one). I don’t give a fuck about music I don’t like (fuck might be a little harsh).
Their performance may not have been the highlight of OSL (he’s next), but it was so much fun to party with The Knocks & friends in the sun at Golden Gate Park. And they played all the hits, ‘Comfortable’ being one of my favorite dance songs of all time.
The first playlists on Silence for the first few years were all best of year. In 2014, it turned into focusing on best of genres. Over the past year, I’ve tried to be more creative about it.
This list is really just remixes of famous songs in a groovy house kind of way. But not titling it so specifically allowed me to broaden the song selection, which made room for more fun things to dance to.