What is this that stands before me?
It’s Gimme Radio, a new home for fans of metal & extreme music
When I was eight years old, I bought Black Sabbath, Vol. 4. There was something about that cover — the super-saturated orange silhouette of Ozzy, the typeface, and the name of the band itself — that I found intoxicating. And then there was the music. This was not “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” Sure, I had Stones and Beatles records that I took from my parents’ collection, but this was the first album that was truly mine. The excitement of finding that record and finding my own music set me on a path for the next 38 years. In that time, I’ve played and toured in bands, managed artists, worked at record labels, and, for the last 10 years, toiled in the music streaming space at companies like Rhapsody, MOG, Beats Music, and, most recently, Apple Music.
Working at these companies was exciting. We literally changed the way people experienced music, creating a world where you have access to 40 million songs, from anywhere, at any time of day. And yet, that feeling that I got buying that first Sabbath album, or going to my first rock concert, or talking about music with other fans at record stores, just didn’t exist on these services. They’re efficient, but sterile.
I realized that the way mainstream music services are set up undermines their ability to make music exciting. With the business models they’ve chosen, and the deals they have struck, these services have to appeal to the widest audience conceivable and grow as quickly as possible. They don’t — or won’t — actively promote music and genres that they don’t believe have mass appeal; even bands that have strong, dedicated fanbases are often overlooked and ignored.
As a result, streaming services have become homogenous and feel similar to commercial radio; they offer the same music, for the same cost, with the same lack of personality. They’ve replaced music with “content,” and humans with algorithms. And in the process, they’ve lost the thing that made us fans in the first place: the emotional connection to music. I wanted to try and bring that back.
And so this year, I left my job at Apple and I joined up with Jon Maples, David Rosenberg and Andy Gilliland, who shared this vision and had experience building cool experiences at places like Google Play, Rhapsody, Live365, Beats Music and 8Tracks, among others.
We set out to build a new kind of music experience: one that focuses on fans and their love for music. One that focuses on a vital and enduring genre with incredibly loyal and vocal fans, but is seriously neglected on mainstream music services: metal.
This experience launches today; it’s called Gimme Radio (www.gimmeradio.com), and it’s the only global, 24/7 home for extreme music.
At Gimme Radio, we believe that music discovery is broken. We believe that the best recommendations come directly from the mouth of a trusted source: your music-fanatic friend, a passionate music writer, or directly from the artist. And it doesn’t come in the form of a playlist, it comes in the form of someone actually playing music for you and offering some context on what you’re hearing. That’s why at its core, Gimme Radio is great radio.
At Gimme Radio, the “content” is as much the DJ and the programming as it is the songs themselves.
We pride ourselves on having DJs who play what they want, not what they’re told to, and encourage them to play songs that would never appear together in a playlist generated by an algorithm.
We want them to make connections and surprise you with juxtapositions you can’t get anywhere else.
We’ve signed up some of the most trusted and interesting sources in metal to DJ on Gimme Radio: people like Ben Weinman from The Dillinger Escape Plan, Randy Blythe from Lamb of God, and Dave Catching from Eagles of Death Metal; writers like Shawn Bosler from Decibel and Frank Godla from Metal Injection (whose show launches today); essential labels like Nuclear Blast and Metal Blade Records; and quite a few others (including some that we can’t quite announce yet, but are pretty exciting). These are the voices of Gimme Radio.
Gimme Radio has a strong focus on community, and building a conversation around the music that our DJs are playing — as it’s playing. We’ve built a feature called Gimme Live that allows fans to connect directly with the DJ, with artists and with other fans. Gimme Live also offers valuable and relevant information about the music that’s playing, to keep the conversation flowing.
Lastly, in building a different kind of music service, we also wanted a different business model, one that puts the focus back on the music — no interruptions, no subscriptions and no ads.
Our model is simple: we sell vinyl, the tangible, collectible format that music fans crave.
We make it easy for the rabid metal fan to buy a record as the DJ is playing it, building her collection with just the push of a button. And, if a song isn’t available on vinyl, she can add it to her wishlist, and we’ll let her know when it’s back in-stock (or re-pressed).
Which brings me back to that copy of Black Sabbath, Vol 4. It seemed crazy, forbidding, and dangerous when I bought that album, but it has since become one of my favorite records of all time. Songs like “Snowblind”, “Cornucopia”, “Supernaut” — amazing, powerful stuff. Who would have thought that almost 40 years later, I’d launch a music service celebrating the music that Black Sabbath started? Or, that I’d create a service that sells vinyl records and brings listeners the same thrill of hearing “Wheels of Confusion” for the first time?
I hope you enjoy experiencing Gimme Radio as much as we’ve enjoyed building it. We built it for you, and we’d love to hear what you think about it. Please drop us a line at feedback@gimmeradio.com to share your thoughts.
Tyler Lenane, co-founder and CEO
Gimme Radio
