Blast Radio, the free audio platform for listeners to hear studio-quality broadcasts directly from the artists they love, has announced Blast Radio Artist Grants.
The new program will award financial grants to the three artists with the most listens in a given month.
Grant recipients are determined democratically by the Blast Radio community. At the end of the month, those with the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd highest listener counts will receive $1,000, $300, and $200, respectively.
“Our ultimate goal is creating a platform that benefits artists. If you’ve used Blast Radio at all, you’ve likely listened to Roy Molloy’s ‘Drive Time Power Hour.’ Roy joined Blast Radio and immediately concepted the idea for his show, mobilized a community of listeners, began broadcasting daily, and became the most listened to broadcaster for all of September. We were blown away by the effort he put in and the joy he brought to listeners. We immediately started thinking about how we could further support artists like Roy in a way that helps them be empowered to keep doing what they love. With that, the idea for Blast Radio Artist Grants was born. This is our first step towards building much more robust programs to support our artist community,” said Yousef Ali, Blast Radio founder and CEO.
The team plans to continue finding creative ways to support their broadcaster community. This specific program will run through the end of the year with grants given to the top 3 broadcasters for October, November, and December.
This is another step in the company’s efforts to build a platform wholly focused on supporting artists.
- More than 75% of artists on Blast Radio came as referrals from other artists
- Blast Box and Blast Radio plugin were created with an artist's exact process in mind
- Artist feedback determines what features are prioritized
- Blast Radio is a safe space to create and share with no mechanism for negative feedback
- The platform is audio only, aligning with the art form of music & spoken word
- Artists can make money by receiving tips directly from fans
While most Blast Radio broadcasts are unannounced and spur of the moment, here are some featured broadcasts you can hear throughout the rest of October:
- Taso (10/19) Long time Teklife stalwart and DJ Rashad collaborator TASO will continue hosting his weekly radio show where he shares unreleased music, speaks with guest producers, and discusses everything from Cannabis farming to race and gender in the music industry.
- Teen Daze (10/20): In honor of the release of his new single, Swimming, Teen Daze is dedicating his next episode of Interior Club Radio to the song; a deep dive into the influences, both musical and otherwise, as well as an in-depth look into the production and arrangement.
- Spencer Tweedy (10/20): Spencer will be hosting Spencer Tweedy’s Drum Diary, where fans can step into his private drum booth as he practices new beats, revisits favorites, shares music he loves, and philosophizes on rhythm. The show kicks off on Wednesday October 20 and will be weekly after that through at least mid November, but likely longer.
- Airpark (10/21): The Nashville-based brother duo will share working demos, as well as dissect a selection of tracks that make up the terroir of their forthcoming release (produced by Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore of Tennis).
- Roy Molloy (Monday-Thursday weekly): Roy Molloy, saxophone player and business partner to Alex Cameron, hosts a daily request-driven drive-time radio show.
- bodyimage (10/25): The LA-based musician continues their weekly conversational broadcast series sharing some of their favorite tracks and discussing what inspires them as they work on their upcoming album.
- Kevin Morby (10/25): The recording artist and founder of Mare records, will follow up his 10/18 Blast Radio debut with a Halloween themed broadcast live from the road while on tour.
- Animal Collective (10/27) The group will share recordings from their recent week of sessions at Drop of Sun studio in Asheville, NC while rehearsing and jamming before their end of Summer tour.
- The Album Leaf (10/29): The solo musician will share a never-before-heard work he’s been developing for more than a year. The broadcast will feature a series of clips with sequences written into each clip that trigger different hardware, culminating in an audio performance of chance.
- Alex Cameron (Date to be announced): will debut Demo-itis, a show that serves to demonstrate what happens to a song before it is exposed to professional production, the recording studio, and especially before it is treated to be heard by the rest of the world.
Product availability:
- The Blast Radio app is available for free in the App Store or Google Play Store
- Artists can order a Blast Box or the Blast Radio plugin at blastradio.com
