Music for Robots is a defunct MP3 blog written and curated by a collective of friends who originally met at Bates College, who founded the website in April 2004. The blog made history in 2004 when it hosted a song by the band The Secret Machines provided to them by Warner Bros. Records, signaling the first time a major label had deliberately encouraged a blog to post an mp3 by one of its artists. The site gained greater notoriety later that year when MTV aired a news feature about the site and one of their discoveries, a band of teenagers from Brooklyn called Hysterics. In 2005, the "robots" branched out, dipping their toes in concert promotion and releasing a compilation CD titled Music For Robots, Vol. 1, which included music from Hysterics, Avenue D, Death from Above 1979, The Mae Shi, and Daedelus.[1] Music (For Robots) was known for their diverse, comprehensive musical tastes and willingness to cooperate with the record industry, and only post music with permission of the artist and/or label.
Music (For Robots) was featured by many publications and programs in the mainstream media including Wired magazine,[2] The New York Times,[3] Rolling Stone,[4] Spin, NPR, the Fresno Bee, The Guardian, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Stereogum,[5] and was the first MP3 blog to be featured in primetime TV during MTV's TRL program in early 2005.