Everything you need to know about Before The Data, Heard First, and how we find artists before they break.
Before The Data is a music discovery platform built by Chad Hillard, founder of Hillydilly (2007-2020), 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.
Chad Hillard. He founded Hillydilly in 2007 and ran it until 2020, discovering Billie Eilish, Lorde, Halsey, LANY, and Daniel Caesar before they broke. He now runs Dreams Never Die, an artist management and label company, alongside Chris Anokute — the A&R behind Katy Perry's Teenage Dream era.
Chartmetric and Spotify for Artists are research tools — you go looking. 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. Members get the shortlist, not the firehose.
The Social Score is a proprietary 0-100 number we calculate daily for every artist on the dashboard. It factors in TikTok UGC volume, Instagram posting consistency, Spotify stream velocity, and follower growth trajectory. It's designed to surface momentum before it shows up in the charts.
UGC stands for User Generated Content — the number of TikTok videos created using an artist's sound. A fast-rising UGC count is one of the earliest signals that a song is catching organically. We track this daily. Most A&R teams don't monitor it at this level until an artist is already blowing up.
We scrape TikTok sound pages daily for every artist on the scouting list and track how many videos are being made using their music. A rapid week-over-week increase in UGC — before the artist has any press or playlist placement — is one of the strongest early indicators we track. We also monitor TikTok follower growth and posting consistency.
We track Spotify monthly listeners and daily stream velocity. Velocity matters more than the absolute number — a 5,000-listener artist whose streams are doubling week-over-week is a stronger signal than a 100,000-listener artist who has plateaued. We update this data daily and flag spikes on the dashboard.
The strongest early signals are: rapidly rising TikTok UGC count, accelerating Spotify stream velocity, Instagram follower growth with consistent posting, editorial playlist placement, and a Social Score trending above 70. A combination of three or more of these in the same week is a strong breakout indicator. We built the dashboard to surface exactly this pattern.
Heard First is the Before The Data membership. Members get access to the live scouting dashboard, weekly artist picks and data briefings, spike alerts when an artist's numbers move, and every new artist add as it happens — before it's shared anywhere else.
Heard First is $49.99 per month with a 7-day free trial. Cancel any time before day 8 and you will not be charged.
Yes. Cancel from your account settings at any time. No hoops, no questions. If you cancel during the 7-day trial, you're not charged a cent.
A&R reps, music managers, sync licensing teams, indie label scouts, music supervisors, 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.
Spotify and YouTube data updates daily. TikTok and Instagram data updates daily. Social Scores recalculate daily. You'll also get email alerts when an artist crosses a significant threshold — so you never miss a spike.