Tag: tampa bay musical artists
Soft rock, easy listening, adult contemporary and the Tampa Bay music scene
With the growing and growing and growing and growing nature of the Underexposed Soft Rock and Easy Listening playlist on Spotify and me crossing work on the Music Tampa Bay playlists that embody the underexposed moniker and yet are also aging with some artists missing in general from social media, I’ve been compelled to start a new soft rock/adult contemporary playlist.
This isn’t open to all and any musicians; this is open to artists in the Tampa Bay metropolitan region. The Lighter Side of Tampa Bay currently has only nine musicians on it, but a number of songs from each:
- Ed Woltil
- Four Star Riot
- Fowler’s Bluff
- Gypsy Star
- Rebecca Zapen
- Robert Andrew
- RosewoodCreek
- Steve Dockendorf
- Swearingen & Kelli
There are more groups and artists in the region with worthy content than this. This is, in part, why I’m posting on my blog: Hey! Tampa Bay musicians with calmer tunes! Share’em with me and potential listeners online please!
You might want to listen to the list as-is to get an idea of the sound I’m going for. I don’t know if hip-hop would mix in, or a bass/beat heavy dance/pop number with wailing vocals. Explicit content is also frowned upon. Seriously, I’m not calling it “The Lighter Side of Tampa Bay” because of the sun.
Feel free to suggest artists or songs to me through comments or directly to me through the site contact form. I’ve also got a music-specific Twitter account or my Facebook page where I can be reached at.
A new Spotify playlist of Tampa Bay musicians and music
In spring of 2017, I took to the task of taking aMusic Tampa Bay Top 100 list of 2016 post was an attempt at exposure for the artists and their work that went further than the hyper-local radio broadcasts and its online music stream.
I’m taking things a step further though I don’t know if this will lead more people to check out this music or what. I’ve created a Spotify playlist of the 2016 Music Tampa Bay Top 100 list.
In trying to aid the exposure of the artists and their music, I don’t know if it did the job so much. Let’s see if a Spotify playlist can help things along.
From my experience researching three different Top 100 lists, I’ve learned it’s a tradition for not all the songs to be available through online streaming. In this case, only 57 of the Top 100 songs from the listing were available… They represent a mix of music genres: Rock, Reggae, R&B, Folk, Pop and Country. The performers herald from the Tampa Bay and west central Florida area and while their sound may be taken as unique, they are all very much of the genres they are derived from in music.
I have intentions of also posting the 2017 Top 100 list and perhaps ones that came before it too. That’ll come in time. Right now, first things first and the 2016 list is here.
Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 list of 2017: #50-26
We’re now in the top 50 of Music Tampa Bay’s Top 100 from 2017 with today’s post. You can find 100 through 76 and 76 through 51 by clicking on those links.
Let me stress here that the Top 100 list was compiled by way of voting on the Music Tampa Bay web site. With that said, the order of the songs does not truly show rank or popularity of the songs as-so-much support that the artists gained on the Music Tampa Bay Top 40 vote each week. This also isn’t a listing of top current acts as-so-much recordings by local (Tampa Bay area) performers that may have been made at any time. While putting together this post I found two songs were from the 1990s. Others I could not find online coverage for and that seems to suggest they could come from any time (though I would not suggest the music is older than 20 years).
In the end, take this as a music and artist discovery opportunity as well as direct exposure for the performing artists and the songs that cracked the list.
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
