As SXSW draws ever closer, it’s time once more the SXSW Baby team to release our music sampler track into the wild.

With over 2,000 bands performing at SXSW Music this year (and countless more that don’t have official showcases), choosing the bands to go and see is always tricky. With the internet, YouTube, Spotify, and other internet services, it’s a lot easier to get a feel ahead of time of the bands to watch out for, be it four names out of a hat on a short news article, right up to the six month listening marathon that is Operation Every Band from friend of SXSW Baby! Kevin McStravick.

Kevin has been highlighting some of his favourites every week, but we’ve got our own tradition at the Baby… our sampler collection of the tracks, bands, singers (and poets) that have caught our ears as we get ready to hit Sixth Street’s sound explosion (Even though we realise that .mp3 is decidedly old school in 2013). Here it is, eighty acts you really must listen to at this year’s South by Southwest music.

DOWNLOAD the SXSW Baby! “Best of SXSW 2013″ sampler
Mega.co.nz link (314 Mb)

A little bit about the process. Through Kevin’s listening via OEB we get our initial “long list” of acts to listen to. Into that mix the SXSW Baby! team threw in the music we’ve been discovering along the way. We also asked a number of our friends in the music industry to suggest a few names as well.

From then it was a matter of listening to them all again, debating favourites, comparing a few songs that were incredibly similar in head-to-head decisions, and once we had a provisional list, any new song that demanded to be included had to bump an existing song out of the playlist.

After all that, we’re left with 80 tracks (all of which are freely available to listen to online folks, we’ve just got them in one place), and a big jigsaw to get a great running order. As previous years, I wanted to create some great moments when listening to the songs, to have the music flow into each other, to have sequences that would allow you to both dip in and out of the sampler, or stick it on a five hour playlist (which should just about reach from the TSA screening at your local airport to the reception desk of your hotel – or twice through if you’re flying from Europe).

If the eighty tracks feels too much for you, then you can break it down to eight ten-track playlists.

• This is SXSW (Tracks 1-10)
• A little bit of Rock with your Roll? (Tracks 11-20)
• The British Sound Invasion (Tracks 21-30)
• We have both kinds of music (Tracks 31-40)
• Time And Relative Dimensions in Song (Tracks 41-50)
• This Land Is Your Land (Tracks 51-60)
• Love Shine A Light (Tracks 61-70)
• A tear, Sarah Jane? (Tracks 71-80)

If you’re not sure, here’s the deal. Listen to the first ten tracks. I’m confident that not only will this give you a great hit of SXSW Music, but you’ll want to listen to the rest of the sampler.

Oh and the 2013 bands in full?

A Band Of Bitches, Asgeir Trausti, Bernhoft, Bhi Bhiman, Black Pistol Fire, Boy, Chappo, Clairy Browne and The Bangin’ Rackettes, Conveyor, Current Swell, Delta Rae, Desert Noises, Diego Garcia, Diplomats of Solid Sound, Ed Harcourt, Elle King, Everything Everything, Fallulah, Five Mile Town, Fort Lean, Foxygen, Frank Turner & The Sleeping Souls, Frightened Rabbit, Houndmouth, Jack Savoretti, Jake Bugg, Jamie N Commons, Jenn Grant, Jenny Owen Youngs, John Cooper Clarke, John Hiatt, Jonathan Boulet, Kid Congo & Pink Monkey Birds, Kim Janssen, Let’s Buy Happiness, Lions In The Street, Little Green Cars, Los Lonely Boys, Luke Sital-Singh, maNga, Meligrove Band, Mister Loveless, Mor Ve Otesi, Ms Mr, Night Beds, Ok Sweetheart, Pacific Air, Palma Violets, Peace, Quiet Company, Pockey LaFarge & The South City Three, Rah Rah, Ravens and Chimes, Rebel MC aka Congo Natty, Reptar, Roadkill Ghost Choir, Rosco Bandana, Royal Teeth, Ruby Jane, Sammy Decoster, Sarah Jaffe, Seth Sentry, Sizarr, Star & Micey, Svavar Knútur, Swear and Shake, Synthesizers, Tamikrest, The Chicharones, The Crookes, The Heavy, The Little Ones, The Mowglis, The Rubens, The Staves, Tim Easton, Tom Odell, Whitehorse, Wildlife Control, and Will Brennan.

“The biggest problem in the 21st century is not piracy but obscurity”, Cory Doctorow.