Methods.

The season

SoundLouder runs in seasons. Entering is free and open to anyone; each season casts a small cohort so every record gets real attention. Season One casts 20 artists and is operated by hand: private listening links and human coordination instead of software. Where Season One strains, the next season gets tools.

Season One opens when the roster justifies it. Twenty filings makes a chart worth running; fewer makes blind review a chore between strangers. We would rather say that plainly than publish a date we would have to move. Once the cast is set, the review window and chart week are posted here before they begin, and pressing preorders open when the winner is named.

Admission: the Release Story

Every entry files a Release Story before it competes: source material, credits, collaborators, tools, classification, and independent timestamps. Receipts are the admission standard. The chart never ranks how a track was made, only whether the making was shown and how the music holds up to blind ears. Fully human, AI-assisted, and AI-heavy work compete on the same chart.

Blind review

• Anonymous pairs. Reviewers hear two different tracks with names, artwork, and anything identifying stripped.
• One forced preference per pair, plus short written feedback. No scores out of ten, no public pile-ons.
• Reviewing is part of entering. Cast members review each other. You cannot trade favors with someone you cannot identify.
• Before-and-after is not a vote. Same-song comparisons (first take against final release) are story content. Only cross-track pairs count toward the chart.
• Season One is counted by hand. Every session is logged, and tallies are checked against those logs before anything publishes.

What touches the chart

Only on-platform blind votes. Social engagement, follower counts, shares, and streams are content, never ranking. If outside buzz moved the chart, artists would be optimizing thumbnails instead of music.

Founder participation

The founder's own tracks may compete. When they do, three rules hold: the entry is disclosed on this page, it stands in the same anonymous pairs as every other entry, and the founder reviews no one. The founder intends to enter one track in Season One; it will be listed here when it is filed.

What SoundLouder verifies, and what it does not

• We verify integrity: that a filed record has not changed since it was signed, that its timestamps come from independent sources, and that an entry completed review.
• The artist attests the rest: authorship, permissions, splits, and tool use are the artist's signed statements. False attestations get records removed.
• We do not verify ownership, and nothing here is legal certification of copyright or legal advice. Classification guidance follows the July 2026 industry labeling program.

Classification privacy

Artists see their industry classification privately before anything publishes, and choose what appears on the public Release Story. Fees pay for the work of producing the record. They never buy an outcome: not a chart position, not a classification, not a pressing.

The pressing

The season winner earns a limited, numbered vinyl release under SoundLouder Pressings, an earned release decided by the peer-reviewed chart. Preorders fund the run; if preorders come in under the pressing-plant threshold, the release ships as a smaller lathe-cut numbered run instead, so the promise is always deliverable. Unit counts are never promised before preorders close.

Questions

Anything unclear, or anything you think these methods get wrong: hello@soundlouder.com. Published July 2026 for Season One; lawyer-reviewed terms ship before the season closes entries.