Tag: indie music radio
The indie music scene and Lonely Oak Radio
Are you into the independent music scene or do you have curiosity into what’s currently going on in that music realm? Perhaps you’d like to discover a new flavor of rock/alternative/pop music? I’d like to recommend a radio stream for such.
I’ve been listening to Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening playlist (Note: Don’t take that as a sign everything Lonely Oak plays is on the softer-sound side because it’s not, its only a fraction of the sound cache the station produces). Not many of the acts on the station are widely known, that’s the life of the indie artist – the chase for exposure
This link will take you directly to the radio stream of the site. No, it’s not a bare-bones audio stream tool but shows the song currently playing as well as the artist and the next artist. There are links to AmazonMP3.com so you can get the song playing if you’re interested in as much. It’s just really integral to have knowledge of what’s playing (without a DJ yammering at length before and after the song plays). It’s also integral to actually hear music without having to deal with advertising (or pay a monthly fee for ad-free radio).
If you’re an artist, you can submit your music to Lonely Oak Radio here. If you’re a fan or supporter of an artist featured on the station, you can donate money to Lonely Oak Radio to get a song to play a few days in a row (the quirk is knowing if you’ll actually catch the song on-air, but I digress).
There are more indie stations out there than I know of, providing more music y little known artists they world over… This stream is just one sampling of what’s out there.
Exposing songs from Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 list of 2016
Indie music is…well, independent to the point it adds additional responsibilities to the artist to expose their tunes to the masses. Sometimes that comes with ease. Sometimes that’s an afterthought.
I cited the other day when talking about Gypsy Star, keeps a competitive Top-40 list (which listeners and web visitors vote on). At the end of the year, the songs that rank highest in votes on the Top 40 are piled into a Top 100 song list. The site has a page devoted to the listings from several years – though the lists are graphics and somewhat illegible. It doesn’t really get the songs out there or make it easy for you to actually find them online.
This post is an attempt at changing that. I’ve taken the 2016 Top 100 listing from Music Tampa Bay and converted the image to an actual list. To build on that, to actually expose the artists who ranked so well to make this list, I’ve hyperlinked to as many of the songs as I could find.
While these are supposed to be Tampa Bay based artists, some have national attention (Four Star Riot among others). Also, while this list was for 2016 – some of the songs were published before then and I don’t mean just a year earlier.
The ranking of the songs itself is based off of votes cast in the Top 40 listing. I can’t say this was pure song rankings, or as if there was no “fix” regarding the top 10; don’t take the order as an opinionated or fine performance ranking. It’s just voting.
As of this writing, 80 out of the 100 songs are linked to so you can take them in yourself. I’ve linked to YouTube most of the time, but other places such as Reverb Nation and Soundcloud also get linking. Spotify contains many of the songs, including non-linked songs (I decided against using Spotify due to the forced registration to use the service). Some of those unlinked songs also are readily available on commercial sites such as Amazon or iTunes – this isn’t a sales-pitch though, so I didn’t link to any of that either.
Some of these songs, despite being listed as Top 100 and having age and radio play on Music Tampa Bay (at least) had never been viewed on YouTube by the time I crossed them while compiling this piece. Some came off as deeply hidden. It sort of furthers the point of limited exposure.
This article remains an ongoing project as I’d like to get music genre listed next to each song… I mean, c’mon! You’ve likely never heard of most (if not all) of these artists and you’re not exactly encouraged to blindly click to a song. At least knowing it’s supposed to be pop, rock, country, folk, etc. will encourage where you go.
Also, as this remains an ongoing project, if you can provide a link for a non-linked song that would be great. Just use comments below or contact me via email with a link. Read More
