_nsigned

What is _nsigned?

_nsigned is a site that publishes reviews of DIY music. Anyone can get their music reviewed, and anyone review peoples' music.

Who is it for?

_nsigned is primarily aimed at three types of people:

• DIY musicians who want to get their music heard and talked about.
• Music lovers who want somewhere to talk about the weird and wonderful DIY music they've been listenined to.
• People who are looking for something new to listen to and need guidance.

What is the goal of the site?

The main goal of the site is to help level the playing field and help artists get their work out there. More than ever, artists are at an advantage if they can afford promotion, or if they have a personality type that suits posting videos on social media. There must be so much great music out there that never gets heard because the artist doesn't have the means or personality to get people to pay attention. This site aims to fix that.

Why only Bandcamp?

The site currently only supports Bandcamp for purely practical reasons:

• Most DIY artists use Bandcamp, even if they prefer other platforms.
• Each supported platform requires different, unique ways to integrate them and adds a tonne of work. The site as it exists now is developed by one person for free, and it's simply unfeasible to support all these different platforms at the moment.
• Only supporting one platform allows it to act as a single source of truth. If an artist has a slightly different name on a different platform, it could end up being duplicated on this site.

Will other platforms be supported in the future?

It's possible. It largely depends on how successful the site is in the long term. However, there are currently no plans to support other platforms.

Which music qualifies?

Almost anything, as long as it's on Bandcamp. The only restrictions are that it must be music and not a podcast or anything like that, and it must not have been made by AI.

Is it possible to filter reviews by genre?

No, and hopefully it never will be. While genres are a useful way to talk about and categorise music, it is also extremely limiting both in peoples' taste and in terms of discovery. Someone who loves rock music and only ever looks for rock music might love jazz if they just listened to it.

Do writers get paid?

The short answer is no.

The long answer is no, in part because the site makes no money and so there is no money to pay writers, but in larger part because this is a site intended for hobbyists, not journalists. The ethos of the site relies on the idea that there are people who are compelled to write about music and want a place where they can do it. Where the intrinsic reward is writing something that other people will read, rather than the extrinsic reward of being paid for it. If someone were to view writing for this site as work then I would recommend that they stop immediately, both for their own benefit and the benefit of the site.

To put it bluntly, while the site may ape some of the aesthetics of journalism, it is not genuine journalism and should not be viewed as such. Journalism is a legitimate career that takes skill and training, and is an essential part of society. This site should really function closer to a forum than a genuine editorial site.

That said, reviewers can add a fundraiser link to their profile which will appear on all reviews they write. Currently the supported platforms are Bandcamp, PayPal, Ko-Fi, Buymeacoffee, and Patreon.

Will the site ever be monetized?

Currently the site has no monetization at all, and if the site remains small then that's unlikely to change. However, if the site becomes extremely popular it's going to be difficult to maintain without any form of income backing it up. What exactly that would look like isn't clear. However, any monetization would absolutely not involve the ability for artists to pay for extra coverage. The playing field must remain level at all times.

Why is it called that?

It is a rule of the internet that the most successful websites are typically ones where the name is a normal word with one letter either removed or added.

You could also say that by removing the capital letter of the name, you're showing that it's about focusing on the smaller artists, but to be honest this is a thought that only occurred to me long after naming the site. The fact is that naming the GitHub repo is like the first thing you do when you start working on a project (which is an absurdly early point in development to come up with something), and I already had a GitHub repo that began with the letter U and I wanted to be able to use tab to auto-complete the folder name in my terminal. But also since about 2011 I've wanted to build a website called "The Unsigned Archive" and that idea is where this site finally evolved from.