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Music for Robots (website)

mp3 blog

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ6941424
Source-derived summary

Music for Robots is a defunct MP3 blog written and curated by a collective of friends who originally met at Bates College, who founded the website in April 2004. The blog made history in 2004 when it hosted a song by the band The Secret Machines provided to them by Warner Bros. Records, signaling the first time a major label had deliberately encouraged a blog to post an mp3 by one of its artists. The site gained greater notoriety later that year when MTV aired a news feature about the site and one of their discoveries, a band of teenagers from Brooklyn called Hysterics. In 2005, the "robots" branched out, dipping their toes in concert promotion and releasing a compilation CD titled Music For Robots, Vol. 1, which included music from Hysterics, Avenue D, Death from Above 1979, The Mae Shi, and Daedelus. Music (For Robots) was known for their diverse, comprehensive musical tastes and willingness to cooperate with the record industry, and only post music with permission of the artist and/or label.

Music (For Robots) was featured by many publications and programs in the mainstream media including Wired magazine, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Spin, NPR, the Fresno Bee, The Guardian, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Stereogum, and was the first MP3 blog to be featured in primetime TV during MTV's TRL program in early 2005.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Music for Robots (website)” is mp3 blog. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Music, Robots and website, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2004, 2005, 1979—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Music, Robots and website is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “mp3 blog” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6941424. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2004, 2005 and 1979.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Music for Robots (website)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Music for Robots (website) primary sources, Music for Robots (website) archive and Music research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Music for Robots (website)”?
  2. Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Music for Robots (website)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.