“Who’s Next?” Updated! The Best New Music Platform on The Web

We just released a new version of Who’s Next?, arguably the best new music platform on the ol’ information superhighway since it was originally released a year and a half ago, featuring a sexy new look, more features, and (most importantly) MORE NEW MUSIC.
For those keeping score, Who’s Next? comprises three core features:

The New Now: Our marquee new-artist this-is-gonna-be-huge platform, which has showcased such artists as James Blunt, Mike Jones, KT Tunstall, Death Cab For Cutie, the Pussycat Dolls well before the mainstream got hip to their varied ways. Plus, there’s some strange thrill in being able to include the disparate sounds of Death Cab and PCD in the same sentence.

Critical Eye: Until now known as One To Watch, Critical Eye is where we get to slot in stuff that we know is just damn good, original, and potentially enduring—regardless of its relationship to sales charts and major-label priority sheets and all that mumbo jumbo. It’s good for the soul to get to spotlight such iconoclasts like the Bravery, Bloc Party, Aqualung, the Raveonettes, and Ed Harcourt. Personal favorite? Giant Drag. Quite a bit of noise from those two kids. Really.

User’s Choice: The feature that has the kids buzzing—our monthly beauty contest in which the public gets to help us choose who we bring into our studio. We’ve done pretty well here — winners have included My Chemical Romance, Hawthorne Heights, Jack’s Mannequin, Relient K, Eisley, and Anna Nalick. Collectively, that’s a lot of gold and platinum records and critical acclaim. No complaints there.

And now, Who’s Next? also features various sub-features that round out the experience. Among them Globetrotting, in which we span the globe to bring you the constant variety of popular music that might not be popular yet (or perhaps ever) to us Yanks; New & Approved, in which the Coldplays and Hoobastanks and Snow Patrols tells us what cool new music they’ve discovered recently; They Sure Sound Like links new artists with their like-sounding predecessors; and The Hit List offers MORE MORE MORE new music videos of all genres, because there’s never enough room to showcase all the good music out there.

On a personal note, as the new version of Who’s Next? splashes, I can’t think of anything better I’d rather be doing with my time. Where else would I get to witness first-hand such quality music? Where else would I get to stand literally five feet from My Chemical Romance as they blow the roof off our quaint Santa Monica studio? Where else would I get to go go-karting with My Chemical Romance, ballroom dancing with Anna Nalick, cake-eating with the Like, or tattoo-ing with As I Lay Dying? And, perhaps the piece de resistance, after having interviews CCM-pop outfit Barlow Girl, seeing my photo with the splendid gals on the Christian chart page of Radio & Records. The first time a Jewish kid has ever been featured there? Maybe so. Another cultural milestone!

Neal Weiss
Yahoo! Music (and Weedpatch)