From a human to a human.
Because in a world where algorithms keep telling us what we should listen to next, there is still something hard to beat about a real recommendation.
A friend saying, “You need to hear this.” Someone coming back from a gig and trying, very poorly, to explain how cool it was. A record passed from one person to another without a marketing plan attached to it. That is the spirit of Above the Crowds.
Basically, good old ear to ear.
Why the name?
Is this a slightly pretentious way of saying we are above everyone else? Not really!
The name is quite literal. Our main editor is tall, so at gigs he usually ends up seeing a little more than he probably should. You know, a clear view of the stage, no matter where he stands.
So, that slightly higher viewpoint became the idea.
Who’s behind it?
Above the Crowds is made by humans who love music enough to go out of their way to write about it, in a time where almost nobody reads anymore. Great business plan, obviously.
But that is kind of the point.
Because having an album recommended by someone who actually cares still feels different from having it pushed into your feed by an algorithm.
Some of us still remember downloading songs, legally, creating messy libraries, burning CDs, sending Youtube links and building taste. Sometimes badly, but mostly personally.
You might see the name of our main editor pop up here and there, Pablo Iriarte, a Berlin-based creative director, writer and photographer. But Above the Crowds is not really about one person.
It is about music community of friends, obsessive listeners, gig-goers, photographers, writers and people with strange little recommendations they cannot keep to themselves.
In short: a small community of ears.
