Song premieres without a leak

The worst version of a music blog is a leak blog. Someone uploads a file that is not theirs, the comments fill with download links, and the “premiere” is just a crime with a headline. Wave will not run that desk. When a song is new, we write about the title, the artist, and the date we actually have. Playback is the licensed clip or the official YouTube the rights holder already published.

That sounds slower than a leak. It is. It is also the only way a listener-owned site stays a site. If the artist has not put the record out, we do not pretend we have it. If they have put out a video, signed-in members can watch that video here. If they have only put out a clip on Apple or Spotify, that clip is what you hear.

How a song post should read

A song post names the track, the artist, and when it lands or landed. It can argue about the beat, the feature, or the video. It should send you to the track page so you can preview it, save it, or queue the official clip. It should not paste a third-party converter. It should not tell you to “just Google the mp3.”

We will tweet those posts the same way we publish them: short text, a Wave URL, no file. If Twitter keys are missing, the tweet sits in the operator outbox until someone posts it. Regular does not mean automatic-and-unreviewed forever — it means the cron has something honest to send every day.