Everything you need to know about Before The Data, the product, the data, the pricing, and how the scouting works.
Before The Data is an A&R scouting dashboard built by Chad Hillard, founder of Hillydilly (2007–2020). An AI agent scouts TikTok 24/7 for emerging artists. Chad filters every find by hand. Approved artists show up on your dashboard with daily Spotify, TikTok, and Instagram data, before anyone else is watching.
Chad Hillard. Founded Hillydilly in 2007, ran it until 2020. Credited with discovering Billie Eilish. Early to Lorde, Halsey, LANY, Dominic Fike, and Daniel Caesar. Now runs Dreams Never Die and Before The Data.
Chartmetric and Spotify for Artists are research tools, you go looking for artists yourself. Before The Data does the filtering first. Chad listens to thousands of songs, applies 19 years of A&R instinct, and only adds artists that have a real shot. You get the shortlist, not the firehose.
A&R reps, music managers, sync licensing teams, indie label scouts, music supervisors, and anyone whose job depends on finding artists before they cost a fortune to sign. If your current discovery workflow is playlists and hoping the algorithm surfaces something good, this is the upgrade.
Spotify streams and daily velocity. Spotify monthly listeners. TikTok UGC count (videos using an artist's sound). Instagram follower count and posting consistency. Proprietary Social Score (0–100, updated daily). Song-level breakdowns. 14-day trend charts for every metric. Spike alerts when an artist crosses a threshold.
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. Designed to surface momentum before it shows up in the charts, who's working, who's breaking, who went quiet.
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 it daily for every song on the dashboard. Most A&R teams don't monitor UGC at this level until an artist is already blowing up.
An AI agent scans hundreds of hashtags, every hour, around the clock, flagging unsigned artists with real early signal. Every find lands in a review queue. Chad listens and decides. Most get cut. The ones with real voice, songwriting, and momentum go on the shortlist.
The strongest early signals are: rapidly rising TikTok UGC, accelerating Spotify stream velocity (the rate, not the totals), Instagram follower growth with consistent posting, editorial playlist placement, and a Social Score trending above 70. Three or more of these in the same week is a strong breakout indicator. The dashboard is built to surface exactly that pattern.
Every day at 5pm after the store turns. Spotify streams, TikTok UGC, Instagram followers, Social Scores, all updated daily. Spike alerts go out by email the moment a threshold is crossed.
$49.99 per month or $479 per year (saves $120). 7-day free trial on the monthly plan. Cancel anytime before day 8 and you're not 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.
Full access. Dashboard, email alerts, Social Scores, spike notifications, every new artist add, no feature is held back. You're testing the real thing for 7 days.
Refunds are handled case by case. If something went wrong, billing error, duplicate charge, trial didn't apply properly, email chad@beforethedata.com within 7 days of the charge and we'll sort it out.
Yes. Programmatic access to scouting intelligence, real-time artist metrics, spike alerts, signing detection. Built for labels, management companies, and platforms that need to move faster than everyone else. See the API documentation.
Yes, for editorial features on the Blog and Editorial sections. Submit at /submit. Note that the submission form is for blog coverage, not inclusion on the Before The Data scouting dashboard. The scouting list is editorially curated and not open to submissions.
The AI agent surfaces candidates. Chad listens to every one. If the voice, songwriting, and momentum are there, it goes on the shortlist. If not, it gets cut. The filter is 19 years of ear, applied the same way it was applied at Hillydilly.
Email chad@beforethedata.com for anything, including partnership and API inquiries.
We currently don't offer this, but email chad@beforethedata.com if you'd like to discuss custom tracking options.