Hello everyone and happy December!! The month of December is known for many things— The Great Comet of 1807 landing in Virginia, Frank Zappa calling John Lennon's "Imagine" boring (he was right), the launch of Wikipedia— but most importantly, it's the month of Secret Sufjan.

»»——————————————— ✼ ———————————————««

What is the Secret Sufjan Playlist Exchange?

Secret Sufjan is a yearly tradition on r/indieheads: participating users sign up with some information on their music taste, and we match them to a Sufjan who curates them a special playlist— and vice versa! Feel free to be creative and thorough when creating your playlists. You won't know who's making your playlist until they send it to you!

Important Dates

The sign-up period starts today and will close on December 13th. I will send out Reddit DMs around that time with details about your Secret Sufjan. Please make sure you have your Reddit DMs open, or else I will not be able to send you the details about your Sufjan. Playlists should be sent over to the person by or before Christmas day. That gives you twelve days to sign up, and give or take ten days to craft and send your playlist. I will be posting reminders about the event when sign-up closes, as well as a mixtape-sharing thread for people to discuss the playlists they received!

Guidelines

• PLEASE send your Sufjan your playlist via Reddit private message by the posted date, or notify me if you're dropping out so I can alert a backup!
• If your Sufjan is a no-show, message me and I'll assign you to a backup Sufjan. You can also register to be a backup Sufjan in case this happens to anyone else!
• Playlist lengths can vary, but please try to aim for somewhere around an hour.
• Finally, again, please fulfill these Sufjans, or set yourself reminders if you know you're the forgetful type! It's always a disappointment to be left out in the cold during such a fun yearly event !!
• Please don't be too ultra-specific in your request for the playlist theme/genre. It can be exceptionally difficult to properly match people together if your request is too narrow.

Sign up for Secret Sufjan ✼✼✼HERE✼✼✼

If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below!! Enjoy!!

Talk about anything music related that doesn't need its own thread. This thread is not for discussion that is tangentially music related; that belongs in the general discussion threads. If you're new here, we encourage you to introduce yourself and tell us about music you're passionate about.

Support your favourite indiehead bands in the Battle of the Bands! Check out what everyone's listening to on the Weekly Charts. Find out who's going to concerts near you in the Concert Roll Call. Check out recent Hype Thursdays to find artists with under 50 upvotes here on indieheads. // Vote for your favourite songs from particular artists in Top Ten Tuesday, or check out the results from previous votes. Check out our the most recent Rate Announcements to have fun rating great music, or see the results from previous rates. // See recent AMA announcements here. Check out the most recent New Music Friday posts, discuss recent album releases, and join the Album Listening Club.

Please restrict TOP LEVEL comments to names of CITIES (and their greater metropolitan areas). Post child replies to these comments noting shows you plan to attend, OR for which you are seeking someone to go with. Give the date, the name of the artist, and the name of the venue.

The original purpose of this thread was to help indieheads find other indieheads to meet up with at concerts. However, you may use this thread however you like.

Howdy Gang! Yes, the indieheads AOTY write-up series IS returning for 2024! (with a small twist)

Indieheads Album of the Year 2024 Write-Up Series!

Hey y'all, we're back again to announce the latest entry of our  Album of the Year Write-Up series. As we have every year since 2015, we're opening up the subreddit to a series of extensive writeups on our users' favorite records of the year, brought in by you! Starting on this MONDAY, DECEMBER 2ND, we’ll be opening up a submission thread for everyone to submit pitches for write-ups about their favorite albums from that year. This year we will be taking 20-25 pitches for this series. It will run January 6th-January 31st All we ask is that you follow the Ground Rules for writing submissions, shown right here:

1. In the comments of the pitch thread, submit a 50-200 word pitch on the album you want to discuss, explaining why you want to write about it and what your unique writing angle will be on it. While we will tolerate a track-by-track review or two we are specifically trying to avoid these and generally will not be taking this kind of writeup if we have to, as we would prefer to curate more original and interesting work. Don’t be afraid to be vulnerable or experimental with your format. You don’t need to have a twenty page masterpiece, just something that shows you take pride in your own work. The best writing always comes from a place of genuine connection to the art that inspired it, with an honest perspective attached. (If you need examples, there should be some from us, ( and  in the first pitch thread.)
2. If you have any previous music writing experience (e.g. previous AOTY series, Canadian Indie Rock, FYC, In Triplicate, outside blog writing) on the sub or elsewhere, be sure to add it to your pitch! While we’re happy to take on newcomers and people of any writing skill, it helps us a lot to know you have a good track record of previous writing about music. We love to see both new and returning names in these series every year! (And we always have plenty of both!)
3. Every year we have issues with this but it still needs to be established. Your writeup must be a Google Doc turned into us at least TWO DAYS BEFORE POSTING DATES, no exceptions. We need that time to get proper editing and revisions done, and ensure that your work is worthwhile. (Also, we don't want to have to work on this during Christmas just as much as you don't want to.) If you don’t turn in on time, we will replace you with a backup, as we’ve done before in previous series.
4. Please have a method of contact outside of Reddit. If we accept you in the series, we need to be able to get in touch with you easily so you can actually make your due date on time. Too many times we’ve had writers send us a solid pitch and then vanish from this website entirely. Having a method of contact such as Discord or e-mail makes our own lives easier when we’re trying to set these things up, and the easier you are to communicate with, the less likely it’ll be that we have to harass you to get ahold of your work.
5. Only pitch albums that are normally allowed to be posted on this subreddit, so, y'know, indie music. I know everyone's clamoring for a Taylor Swift piece, but we have our limitations here! (though we do allow indie rap artists that are allowed on the subreddit for pitches as well) Just pick something that would normally be allowed here, of which there should be plenty to choose from just albums that released in February.
6. Have fun with it! As long as you submit a nice, detailed pitch, you’ll get a response as quickly as is appropriate from us. Just do your best and your effort will shine through. If you need inspiration, look at some of the pitches from our 2020 Submission Thread.

That's all! Send us your pitches in the upcoming submission threads on MONDAY, DECEMBER 2ND and we’ll accept them as soon as possible. The series this year is set for January 6th-January 31st, and we hope to make it a great one as always!

Talk about anything, music related or not! Or if you want to discuss music, check out the daily music discussion threads. If you're new here, we encourage you to introduce yourself and tell us about music you're passionate about.

Support your favourite indiehead bands in the Battle of the Bands! Check out what everyone's listening to on the Weekly Charts. Find out who's going to concerts near you in the Concert Roll Call. Check out recent Hype Thursdays to find artists with under 50 upvotes here on indieheads. // Vote for your favourite songs from particular artists in Top Ten Tuesday, or check out the results from previous votes. Check out our the most recent Rate Announcements to have fun rating great music, or see the results from previous rates. // See recent AMA announcements here. Check out the most recent New Music Friday posts, discuss recent album releases, and join the Album Listening Club.

I was thinking about how Pat Smear from the Germs or most notoriously Nirvana took David Bowie’s cigarette butt off the floor and put it into a small bottle and wore it as a necklace. I’m wondering if anyone has those sort of 1 of 1 items.

Talk about anything music related that doesn't need its own thread. This thread is not for discussion that is tangentially music related; that belongs in the general discussion threads. If you're new here, we encourage you to introduce yourself and tell us about music you're passionate about.

Support your favourite indiehead bands in the Battle of the Bands! Check out what everyone's listening to on the Weekly Charts. Find out who's going to concerts near you in the Concert Roll Call. Check out recent Hype Thursdays to find artists with under 50 upvotes here on indieheads. // Vote for your favourite songs from particular artists in Top Ten Tuesday, or check out the results from previous votes. Check out our the most recent Rate Announcements to have fun rating great music, or see the results from previous rates. // See recent AMA announcements here. Check out the most recent New Music Friday posts, discuss recent album releases, and join the Album Listening Club.

I know it’s such a vague question but I think it would come with interesting answers as to why they think the face of indie is _______. The discourse over Max Demarco being named the prince of indie got me thinking about this. What’s your take?