Before The Data
AI-powered A&R scouting. Daily data. Human curation.

The scouting edge the spreadsheet tools do not give you.

19 years of discovering artists before they break. Now it is a dashboard.

▶ Watch: How Heard First Works

From 24/7 AI Agent Scroll to your inbox.

🤖 AI Agent Scans TikTok 24/7 across hundreds of hashtags
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🎯 Radar Every find lands in a review queue
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👁 Human Filter Most get cut. Only the real ones pass.
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📊 Dashboard Approved artists enter your scouting feed
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📈 Daily Data Streams, followers, UGC updated every day
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🔔 Your Inbox Spike alerts, weekly picks, monthly roundups
See what's inside ↓

Then $49.99/mo. Cancel anytime.  Or $479/yr, save $120 ↓

19 Years
of music discovery
Daily
data tracking
24/7
AI scouting
Alerts
to your inbox
INSIDE THE DASHBOARD

See what you get.

Each metric tells a story. Scroll to explore.

THE DISCOVERY MOMENT

AI finds it. Chad listens. You get the result.

Our AI agent scouts TikTok 24/7, scanning hundreds of hashtags for emerging artists. Every find gets sent to Chad for a human listen. Most get cut. Only the real ones make it to your dashboard.

🎯
Radar
Artist Discovery Queue
MK
Maya Kim
TikTok · #originalsong
👀 ✕
"Voice is unreal. 2K followers, 89K likes on her first original. This is early."
JL
Jules Langford
TikTok · #singersongwriter
👀 ✕
"Storytelling. Nashville feel. Three originals, all good. Watch this one closely."
RP
River Parks
TikTok · #bedroompopartist
👀 ✕
"Production is way ahead of the follower count. Bedroom pop with real depth."
Radar review queue shown for illustration. Not visible in the Heard First dashboard.
AT A GLANCE

Every artist. One screen.

Streams, followers, UGC, social score. All updated daily. Click any stat to drill deeper.

AJ
Ava James
Spotify · TikTok · Instagram
TOTAL STREAMS
12.4M
+189.3K
MONTHLY LISTENERS
743.2K
TIKTOK
28.1K
INSTAGRAM
9.2K
UGC
1,204
Social Score
67 / 100
SPOTIFY STREAMS

Daily velocity. Weekly momentum. Monthly trajectory.

See exactly how fast an artist is growing. Not just totals, but the rate of change that tells you where they are headed.

Spotify Streams
Total plays across all tracks.
ALL TIME
12.4M
THIS MONTH
+189.3K
THIS WEEK
+94.6K
TODAY
+47.2K
3/14 3/20
UGC INTELLIGENCE

How many videos use their sound.

TikTok and Instagram UGC is the earliest signal of virality. We track it daily for every song in the catalog.

TikTok & Instagram UGC
Videos using artist sounds.
ALL TIME
1,204
THIS MONTH
+312
THIS WEEK
+89
TODAY
+24
TikTok 1,069
Instagram Reels 135
SOCIAL SCORE

One number. Updated daily.

A proprietary 0-100 score measuring posting consistency across TikTok and Instagram. See who is building momentum and who has gone quiet.

SOCIAL SCORE
74/100
TIKTOK/WK
5
IG/WK
10
TK TOTAL
47
IG TOTAL
12
TK +7D
+8
IG +7D
+3
SONG ANALYTICS

Every track. Every metric.

Stream counts, daily velocity, TikTok UGC, Instagram UGC, and 14-day trend lines. See which songs are driving growth.

TITLE STREAMS DAILY TK UGC IG UGC TREND
Golden Hour 4.2M +67.3K 512 89
Satellite 3.1M +41.8K 298 34
Fade Out 2.4M +28.5K 187 12
All I Know 1.8M +19.2K 124 0
ARTIST ALERTS

Know the moment we add someone.

Every time a new artist is added to the scouting list, you get an email. Detailed scouting report, every metric, and exactly why we added them before anyone else hears about it.

Artist alert email example
THE ALTERNATIVE

What else is out there.

✕
Chartmetric Premium
$1,400/yr
Great data. Zero curation. You still have to find the artists yourself.
✕
Soundcharts
$129/mo
Deep catalog tracking. Built for artists already on your radar, not finding new ones.
✕
Viberate
$19.90/mo
Broad coverage. No editorial layer. No one is pre-filtering who is worth your time.
Before The Data does the filtering first.
WHAT MAKES THIS DIFFERENT
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Already curated
Every artist on the dashboard has already been approved. You see the shortlist, not the noise.
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AI scouting runs 24/7
A dedicated AI agent scrolls TikTok around the clock, surfacing artists before they break. Every find still goes through a human editorial filter.
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Your edge stays protected
Artists on this dashboard are yours to act on first. We may share select finds publicly over time, but pre-release artists with no music out are never disclosed. Your early access is the advantage.
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Weekly and monthly email reports
Weekly: top movers, new picks, what is gaining momentum. Monthly: deeper roundup, ones to watch, who has risen, who has stalled.
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Alerts straight to your inbox
Spike notifications when an artist starts moving. Weekly picks. Monthly roundups. You never have to check the dashboard to stay informed.
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Proprietary social score
Every artist gets a 0-100 score updated daily, built from TikTok posting frequency, Instagram posting frequency, and consistency over time. See who is putting in the work, who has gone quiet, and who is on an upswing.
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Live data, not screenshots
Every day, our AI agent pulls fresh data across every artist: Spotify stream counts, TikTok UGC video totals, Instagram followers, posting frequency, and social score. No manual entry. No stale numbers. The pipeline runs automatically so the dashboard is always current when you open it.
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Email alert on every new add
Every time a new artist is added to the scouting list, you get an email. Full scouting report, every metric, and exactly why we added them before the BTD post goes public.
Chad Hillard
Built by Chad Hillard
Founded Hillydilly in 2007. Discovered Billie Eilish, Lorde, Halsey, Daniel Caesar, LANY. Shut the blog down in 2020. Now runs Dreams Never Die and Before The Data.

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HEARD FIRST
Free for 7 days
$49.99/mo after
Cancel anytime before day 8.
Enterprise

Build on our data.

Looking for programmatic access to scouting intelligence? Our API delivers real-time artist metrics, spike alerts, and signing detection directly into your workflow. Built for labels, management companies, and platforms that need to move faster than everyone else.

Real-time artist metrics Spike detection Signing alerts Song-level data RESTful JSON API
View API Documentation →

or email chad@beforethedata.com for partnership inquiries

FAQ

Questions

Before The Data is a music discovery platform built by Chad Hillard, founder of Hillydilly, one of the most influential music blogs of the 2010s. We track unsigned artists in real time across Spotify, TikTok, and Instagram, and surface the ones worth watching before they break.

Heard First is our membership tier. Members get access to the live scouting dashboard, weekly picks, data spike alerts, and every new artist add as it happens, before it goes anywhere else.

Chartmetric and Spotify for Artists are research tools. You go looking for artists. Before The Data does the filtering first. Chad listens to thousands of songs, applies 15+ years of A&R instinct, and only adds artists that have a real shot. You get the shortlist, not the firehose.

Spotify streams and daily velocity, TikTok UGC count, Instagram followers and post consistency, proprietary Social Score (0-100 updated daily), song-level breakdowns, 14-day trend charts, and spike alerts when an artist crosses a threshold.

The Social Score is a proprietary 0-100 number we calculate daily for every artist on the dashboard. It factors in TikTok posting frequency, Instagram posting frequency, and consistency over time. It's designed to show you which artists are actively building, not just who had one viral moment.

Heard First is $49.99/month with a 7-day free trial. Cancel any time before day 8 and you won't be charged.

Yes. Cancel from your account settings at any time. If you cancel during the 7-day trial, you're not charged. No hoops, no questions.

A&R reps, managers, music supervisors, sync licensing teams, indie label scouts, and anyone whose job is finding artists before they cost a fortune to sign. If you're still using playlists and algorithms as your only discovery tool, this is the upgrade.

See all FAQs