Reviewing the Best Submissions on our Reddit Thread

We take a look at some of the best submissions from the Pigeons & Planes reddit page. Submit your music if you want to be heard!

At the beginning of the year, we started a subreddit to help take submissions. We're still open to submissions at submissions(at)pigeonsandplanes(dot)com, but as the number of emails increases, it becomes more and more difficult to ensure we catch all the best ones. The idea behind the subreddit was that users can vote on submissions and the best stuff will rise to the top.

To be completely honest, it hasn't gone exactly as planned. It seems that the most popular stuff is just the stuff that artists promote by telling fans to vote up, and the vast majority of submissions only have one upvote.

We're hoping that by encouraging more people to submit this way, we'll build a more active community to help us discover the best submissions. So here we are. We've spent hours listening through the reddit submissions, from the ones with no upvotes to the most popular.

These are our favorites. Thanks for submitting.

1.

2. Matt Burton - "Backwoods and BMWs"

Genre: R&B

Over a sleepy beat built around a layered, harmonized vocals, Portland artist Matt Burton addresses the doubters and gets brutally honest with a casually melodic flow. Burton's got a unique voice and an effortless charm, and "Backwoods and BMWs" is going to have us digging through the rest of his SoundCloud uploads.

3. Viola Ellis - "Stranger"

Genre: Horror pop

Horror pop? Down for this. Down for anything with "horror" in front of it, to be honest. Horror zoo, horror face, horror drugs, horror pop. HORROR LIFE.

4. Mooky - "Nominee for Most Passive-Aggressive"

Genre: Hip-hop

"We're not great, but we love what we do."

Yo Mooky, don't be so humble—this is pretty great. Hip-hop with that live band feel doesn't always work unless your name starts with an R and ends with an OOTS, but this is fun. Makes me want to smile and go to a wedding.

5. John River - "Hope City II"

Genre: Hip-hop

Using a popular beat always puts a new artist at an immediate disadvantage. Bringing something original to an established song is difficult, but Canadian rapper John River gets really real on "Hope City II," talking about sounding like J. Cole, finding his own voice, and sticking to his dreams. You can tell he's rapping from the heart, and that's always an effective route.

6. Kristen Walker - "Wind Blows"

Genre: Caribbean/RnB

A LOT of the submissions on our Reddit were hip-hop, so this airy, mellow song from Kristen Walker was a nice change pace. There's great potential here, too, Walker has a lovely, soothing voice and the songwriting is strong—if Jhene Aiko is so successful in that lane, there's no reason Kristen Walker can't be too.

7. Justah Phase - "Nostalgia Freestyle"

Genre: Hip-hop

This is the second most popular track of all our Reddit submissions, and it came with the message: "This dude from Queens, NY put out a freestyle yesterday that made the front page of r/Hiphopheads and I'm posting it here because It was amazing and we're all itching for the next thing he puts out. Figured you'd want to hear him for yourself. "

Count us in. This is raw and doesn't give much insight into Justah Phase's style as an original artist, but there is a lot of potential here, and Phase has an electric, charismatic energy.

8. Alekesam - "All Is Forgiven"

Genre: Soul

The vocals leave something to be desired, but all is forgiven because of those cracking drums and that elastic bass.

9. Rashid St. James - "We Like To Party (OOC Anthem)"

Genre: Hip-hop

Add Rashid St. James to the list of talented emcees coming out of Toronto. "We Like To Party" is an ominous anthem that finds James and his crew prowling through downtown Toronto, ending up at a chaotic house party with heavy black lights.

James' flow cuts through the heavy, percussive beat like a knife, and the result is a growling, raw affair that lands the young rapper squarely on our radar.

10. Tyrone Beasley - 'Shuto Expressway' EP

Genre: wistful jazzy instrumental hip hop

On Tyrone Beasley's Bandcamp, Shuto Expressway is billed as "a tribute to nujabes; shuto expressway is the highway on which the 36 year old japanese beatsmith met his end in a tragic car accident."

The young producer does Nujabes proud with a collection of lo-fi, jazzy beats. "Taxi" is the album opener and an easy standout, but if chill trip-hop is your thing and you're looking for a new collection of beats for the neighborhood cypher, give Tyrone a try.

11. Diaz Grimm ft. Lukan Rai$ey & Spycc - "QUARTERBACKS"

Genre: New Zealand rapper

One of the best ways to stand out as an aspiring artist submitting your music to blogs is through strong production and a professional sound quality. You don't need to hit Abbey Road, but at least pay some attention to things like mastering, and pay an engineer if you can. It sounds as if Diaz Grimm has actually spent time and effort on "QUARTERBACKS," which only makes us want to listen more.

12. ||Legions|| - "If We're Crazy"

Genre: Downtempo trap production

||Legions|| makes the kind of downtempo trap that would be equally at home in a cloud of blunt smoke or growling under some Atlanta trap rap. The vibes abound, especially on the syrupy-slow "If We're Crazy." Great sub-bass vs. hi hat work being done here.

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