Along with trips to the beach (or shore, as we say here), BBQs, amusement parks and the festival season, another thing to look forward to with Summer is Adult Swim’s annual singles series. Since 2010, the network has been curating a series in which every week, a new or unreleased song is available as a free download. In previous years, it’s given us the first new music from Sleep in 20 years, Mastodon (and Mastodon with Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers ), and Myrkur. among others. Each year, it’s expanded a little more, and this year is no exception. It’s almost hard to remember that it was just nine songs when it launched. Last year’s was 19 weeks long, and they’ve outdone themselves this year with a massive 25 weeks of music that will run through November 9. Adult Swim creative director Jason Demarco tell Fast Company that while it was initially sponsored, they’ve realized the value in it and now do it even if they don’t have a sponsor:
“We had all these music things we did where we just gave away free music, and we had this idea, ‘What if we gave away a song once a week, every week, for some period of time, and then advertisers could come on board and sponsor it and pay for it?’ So we launched in 2010 with Kia as our sponsor—but it’s now to the point where we do it every year, with or without a sponsor,” Demarco explains. “The reaction from Adult Swim fans has been so positive, and all the music press has been so great, that the value became obvious to us, just for Adult Swim’s own brand. It started as a revenue opportunity, and expanded into more of a marketing thing, because it was clear that fans liked it so much that we would have been stupid not to do it.”
Here’s the lineup of artists, which includes Brooklyn’s Sannhet, Vhol, Against Me!, Run the Jewels and more. The series starts this week, and you’ll be able to access the music here.
Against Me!
Blanck Mass
Clark
D∆WN
Die Antwoord
DJ Paypal
Earl Sweatshirt / KNX
Elysia Crampton
Flying Lotus
HEALTH
Jenny Hval
Jlin
Kitty
Metro Boomin
Mica Levi
Mike WiLL Made-It
Protomartyr
Rae Sremmurd
Run the Jewels
Ryan Hemsworth
Sannhet
Thelonius Martin [ft. Joey Purp]
Tim Hecker
VHÖL
Vince Staples
