Oh hi there. Because of Tumblr’s fab new Spotlight section (which we’re very excited to be included in) there’s a very good chance you’re new around these parts. Let me show you around.

HotSpotMusic was started with a very simple premise - to be a guide and a filter for an overwhelming amount of new music being released and to restore the focus on the music and not the hype. We only review albums - the best way to consume an artist’s work - so you won’t find MP3s fresh from the blogosphere (there’s plenty of other great sites that do a much better job of that). Each album review includes a link to the album on Spotify. We try and post one review a day.

We’re also tired of arbitrary decimal ratings out of 10 so we have a very simple ranking system: albums you should stop whatever it is you’re doing and listen to right now, albums you should plan on carving out time in your busy schedule to listen to soon and those albums that can probably wait until later.

What else? Oh yes:

• Monthly playlists of all the reviewed albums
• Sunday Sermons is a special review one day of the week to reflect on some of the forgotten, classic or revived albums that deserve some attention
• Irregular video posts over on HotSpotVideos
• Monthly mixtapes of tracks from artists without albums that are too good to miss over on HotSpotMixtapes
• #hsmdaily: a Twitter-only post of one song per day (grab the playlist here)
• An upcoming releases page so you can get excited about the things we’re excited about too

Some of these happen more frequently than others but all of them do, in some form, exist.

Want to recommend something or just say hi, do it over on Twitter, Facebook or ourcollaborative Spotify playlist.

Thanks for reading, we hope you enjoy it.

Started by @thomcummings / @Velcrometz