SongsBrew, brought to you by Music24

Hello You.

Last week we went looking for the nastiest low end we could find, great week, the speakers loved it. This week we're looking at you.

I saw The Darkness at JB's in Dudley in October 2002 (same gig as the one mentioned the other week), as the opening act. I thought they were awful on stage, though looking back it was more to do with the levels. I still told everyone about this terrible opener I'd seen. A year later I BELIEVE IN A THING CALLED LOVE was at number two, and I ended up loving the cleaner release.

Telling everyone about a band, even one you think is terrible? That's also A&R, apparently.

Finding bands early used to be someone's actual job, and in some places it still is. A&R meant a person with good ears at a small gig on a Tuesday. John Peel liked TEENAGE KICKS so much he played it twice in a row on air, and Sire signed The Undertones.

Peel's show was just whatever Peel fancied that week, late at night on Radio 1. Thousands of bands went in to record Peel Sessions, loads of them before anyone else would go near them. The listeners even voted for the end-of-year chart, the Festive Fifty.

These days a lot of labels would rather buy what's already moving than build something from scratch. A Sony UK boss said it back in 2015: "There's no 'middle class' of artist at majors anymore."

So who's finding the bands now? Mostly you and us, to be honest.

Grover from Sesame Street swivels round and points straight at the camera

Now about 106,000 new songs go up on streaming every day. Most barely get heard, 88% of tracks got 1,000 plays or fewer last year. Nobody's getting through that, so it comes down to us saving stuff and sending it round the group chat.

OLD TOWN ROAD started with a $30 beat from a Dutch teenager. People on TikTok made it a thing, it hit the chart, and only then did a label sign Lil Nas X. Arctic Monkeys handed out demo CDs at gigs, fans passed them around online, and the band had a crowd before anyone offered them a deal.

When you send a song to a friend with "you need this", you're doing the job. A&R in the purest form.

That's pretty much what RADAR is. We started it in March as a mix of five new artists every week, and now it's features, Instagram posts and TikToks most days. We have another 32 lined up for the next few weeks, and more pouring in every day.

About two thirds of the artists we feature, we went and found ourselves, on TikTok, on Instagram, at gigs. The rest found us. (Send us stuff.)

Show us your finds

This week we want to hear from you.

We've got a SongsBrew Community Mix on Spotify, and we want it full of the stuff you've found before everyone else. The song with 900 plays that deserves 900,000. We've started it off with two from RADAR, THROUGH THE PAIN by Eradite and JETZT by Thomas Passon.

Listen to the Community Mix

If you'd send it to a friend with a line on why, it belongs here.

Hit reply with your find or use the link and add it yourself.

Be first, not last

RADAR is where we put small artists in front of you every week. If you want to hear them before anyone else does, follow along:

Making music yourself? You can send it to us here. It's free.

One favour

If you've got a friend who's always sending you songs, they're A&R too. Forward them this, or send them to songsbrew.com to sign up. It's the best way to help us keep doing this.

See you next Thursday.

If you've made it all the way here, you owe us one song we've never heard of.

The reading, if you want to go deeper:

Header photo: Carl Tronders on Unsplash