Journal: First Month Back

A recap of Puddlegum's first month of being back. 35 articles and 5 Mixtapes in 27 days. Puddlegum is now on Hype Machine and SubmitHub!
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On May 22, it will be one month since Puddlegum relaunched. This is the third time we’ve developed Puddlegum, and we’re excited to see where this goes. Puddlegum v1 was launched in 1997, before Google existed (and before “blogs” were a thing). We called it an “ezine”, but it was one of the first music blogs on the web. Puddlegum v2 was launched in 2005 as an Mp3 blog, and at its peak it drew 10,000 visits an hour. We realize it will take time for Puddlegum.blog (v3) to fully develop, but it’s coming along a lot faster than we anticipated.

In 27 days, we’ve posted 11 Mix Reviews, 7 Conversations (interviews), 5 Puddlegum Mixtapes, 5 Journals, 7 Music posts (which don’t involve mix reviews, though the Music page includes every post that has music), and 1 Resources articles (artist resources we want to develop). Several of the Conversations cross over as Mix Reviews, but we’ve posted 35 articles so far.

Puddlegum is on SubmitHub and Hype Machine!

One of the biggest challenges in running a music blog is keeping up on music submissions. When I ran v2, Puddlegum would receive 80-100 artist submissions by email every day, plus physical submissions by mail. Submissions are starting to pour in, which requires time to listen and respond as best we can. As of this morning, Puddlegum is accepting submissions via SubmitHub.

Puddlegum has been added to Hype Machine! This site is a great resource for discovering music. Hype Machine aggregates hundreds of music blogs, adding music that active bloggers post. You’ll find a Popular chart that brings great exposure to artists and blogs. Puddlegum was a Hype Machine from 2005 (when Hype Machine started) to 2010. We’re excited to be on this site again!

About our Playlists

We’d like to explain our playlists. Some of these are set up to be embedded in our posts, but we’ve added more.

Puddlegum Mixtapes is our weekly playlist of curated songs and videos. We create a new playlist on YouTube each week with 16 videos. You can find past Mixtapes on YouTube. On Spotify, the Puddlegum Mixtape is updated weekly, so please like/follow this playlist if you enjoy our mixtapes. We create these mixtapes on SoundCloud as well, though not every song can be found on SoundCloud.

Puddlegum Mixtape on Spotify
Puddlegum Mixtapes on YouTube

On Spotify and YouTube, you’ll find Puddlegum.blog playlist. This is a playlist of music that has appeared in an article on Puddlegum (this doesn’t include songs from Puddlegum:Finds or Puddlegum Mixtapes). Please subscribe on Spotify!

Puddlegum.blog playlist on Spotify
Puddlegum.blog playlist on YouTube

We’ve created the Puddlegum:Finds playlist on YouTube and Spotify, These playlists won’t match. They’re updated as we find music we enjoy, and these songs may or may not end up in Puddlegum posts or Puddlegum Mixtapes. It’s a quick way to share music we stumble on.

Puddlegum:Finds playlist on Spotify
Puddlegum:Finds playlist on YouTube

Give us Feedback

Some things we’re considering (please give us feedback):
While our YouTube channel is new, and we’ve used it for creating playlists, we’re considering the idea of posting music videos and album art videos (singles) to our YouTube channel (with artist permission). It will take time for our follower count to add up, so we wouldn’t expect many views for a while. But this is something we’re interested in developing.

We’re also interested in doing this on Facebook. Facebook tends to push Facebook Videos over any other content type, so this might be a great way to push music we love. Thoughts? Please share as a comment below.

If you’ve read this far, you’re clearly dedicated. We’re developing a Puddlegum Team of curators and contributors. If music journalism or music curation is your thing, you dig the music we’re posting, and your friends are always asking you for music recommendations, please contact me. So far, everything has been done by me, Flick. But I know this is not sustainable.

Thank you so much for your enthusiasm and support! We’re excited to be back.

18pm – “Control” (SoundCloud)
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Kevin Flick
Kevin Flick

Kevin Flick founded Puddlegum in 1997 and has been engaging in music journalism off and on since. He's also a recording/mixing engineer and loves to help bands work through the creative process. He has coproduced and mixed for artists such as Saeyers, Midi Memory, and Cathedral Bells.

Rumors are that he's a Brighton Hove & Albion FC fan. He's also obsessed with coffee. Kevin resides in the college community of Bloomington, Indiana, where he studied at Indiana University.

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