It’s been our tagline since we started MELT FM in late 2024: a three-word statement that was meant to capture our mission of exploring music outside of the mainstream. As long as you were doing something original, something authentic, we’ve been interested in it since our inception.

That statement has successfully been our guiding light so far. Since our first set of Artist Profiles, we’ve grown from 50 visitors a month to over 1,500. We’ve built a consistent audience, and we’re ridiculously proud of that fact.

But, as many of you are aware, it’s difficult carving out a space in the intersection between the Internet and the written word. Often, it feels as though the two are conjoined far more sparsely than they should be. 

Mainstream music journalism (and corporate giants like Pitchfork) are in their dying throes. People are reading, on the whole, less than they ever have. Music discovery has been subsumed by the all-seeing algorithm. Even traditional music criticism has lost much of its audience. The market, and what readers are looking for, is rapidly changing. 

So we’ve found ourselves confronting an existential question of sorts— What place does independent music journalism have in our ever-evolving world?

Readers no longer need publications to wield a sword of objective determinism— they no longer need a music critic to tell them what’s good or what’s worth listening to. Music is more accessible than ever, and as such, listeners are fully capable of forming their own judgements. It becomes the music writer’s duty, therefore, to engage actively and intentionally not only with the music itself but with the stories behind the music .

In a Heraclitean stream of “content”, virtually no one is lacking in information. As hard as the algorithm may try, however, it cannot replace the genuine, personal connection that readers are searching for.

At least, we hope they are. As we expand over the coming months, the aim is that the playlists, curation, and other avenues we attempt to access remain secondary to our central mission: providing our readers with genuine ways to engage with the art and the artists they love.

So, with that, I direct you back to our original thought:

Do something interesting. We’ll be trying to.

Do something interesting.

WANT To write for us?

We’re accepting applications now for new album reviewers/contributors to the site. If interested, please email a sample of your writing (particularly album reviews) to melt.fm.magazine@gmail.com.