Beatport launched its new Hype chart last week. Here’s everything you need to know about it.

Keen-eyed Beatport users will have noticed a brand new section of the popular electronic music download site over the past few days. Joining the platform’s previous range of charts and pages is Beatport Hype—a new initiative intended to shine a light on boutique record labels and up-and-coming artists.

The service, according to Beatport themselves, is designed to give additional exposure to these labels by including 10 ‘Hype Picks’ for each of the site’s most popular genres. To help you get to grips with this innovative new way to find music, we dig into Beatport Hype, and tell you everything you need to know about using it.

What is Beatport Hype?

As explained on Beatport Hype’s homepage, the new initiative is aimed at helping DJs dig a little deeper into Beatport’s colossal collection of new tracks released each week. Beatport may be the number one online store for electronic music DJs around the world, but previously it’s been difficult for users to seek out and find hot new tracks before they break through.

That’s where Beatport Hype comes in.

By highlighting the best of the smaller and up-and-coming labels that release through the platform, Beatport Hype points DJs in the direction of tunes that are primed to break through, but haven’t yet penetrated the clubs.

How does Beatport Hype work?

Unlike other music charts, which are based on sales and popularity, Beatport Hype is geared around the brand’s world-renowned curation expertise. Each week, the Beatport editorial team will make ‘Hype Picks’ for each of the following genres: deep house, drum & bass, house, melodic house & techno, minimal, prog house, psy trance, tech house, techno, and trance. These expert picks will give DJs an insight into the best new music out there, no matter how big the label.

Though there is a standalone Beatport Hype page, a Hype Top 10 has been added seamlessly to each of the above mentioned genre’s own homepages. At the time of writing, the House Hype Top 10 highlights tracks from labels including Phoenix Music Inc, Soulfuric Deep, Motion, and Myna Music among others.

Hype Picks will also make their way into the website’s New Releases section, with dedicated slots to highlight the latest hyped music as soon as it arrives.

How can DJs use Beatport Hype?

Since it’s so integrated, it’s easy for DJs to work Hype Picks into their regular selection routine. Next time you’re browsing by genre, make sure you consider the up-and-comers from the Hype Picks sidebar. Not only will you be supporting boutique labels—the kind that need support to help new artists and sounds really take off—but you’ll also be making sure your sets stand out from the rest.

Where will Beatport go next?

Beatport Hype was announced at IMS Ibiza back in May. Now it has been launched, what else does the brand have on the cards?

Firstly, there’s the launch of Beatport’s upcoming streaming platform. Though not much is known about this yet, Beatport has announced that it aims to integrate all of its content onto a streamable service, with the tentative launch date of 2019.

The announcement came after Beatport acquired the cloud storage platform Pulselocker. The new Beatport service will not rival Spotify and Apple Music, though. Instead, tracks will be streamable to DJ software, keeping Beatport’s DJ focus in place.

Will Beatport Hype influence the Beatport Top 100?

At the moment, it’s impossible to say for sure. But if Hype Picks prove popular with DJs, we could certainly see more independent label hits climbing up the chart, and onto the radar.