If I ever heard the phrase “We Are Hunted” out loud, I would probably think it’s some sort of anthropomorphic deer pleading for help, but yesterday I found out that if you add a dot com to the phrase, you get something that may actually be cooler than a talking deer. I was reading the New Rockstar Philosophy a while back, and as per usual, they had a fucking fantastic point. I can’t find the article currently, but it dealt with the way the music charts are gathered and how it’s all based on physical sales. Well like it or not, not all music is obtained through purchases, and this is where the charts fall flat on their face.

So the revolutionaries over at NRP came up with the idea of a digital chart, something that would be a lot closer to actual representations of what the world is collectively listening to. We Are Hunted has done exactly that, and it’s about time someone did. On the About page they describe themselves as tracking blogs, forums, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and even P2P networks to gather the charts. The only thing that would be icing on the cake would be iTunes plays, but even so the amount of networks that they gather data from is already pretty comprehensive, which I think makes for pretty accurate charting.

The site itself is absolutely gorgeous, sporting a minimalist structure clad with huge pictures of the artists, as well as the name of the song and artist for easy identification. All you have to do is click the artist and a lovely toolbar drops down and plays the whole song for you, it’s that easy. It’ll also keep playing through the chart after the song you select is done. They have several different categories you can see the charts in. You can do it with only emerging artists, which has been bringing me new kick ass indie rock to listen to for days. You can also filter by genre, with has eight fairly standard subcategories (Rock, Pop, Folk, Metal, Alternative, Electronic, Punk, Rap/Hip Hop). The site also features a chart just for Twitter as well as one just for Remixes, which is one of the my favorite elements of We Are Hunted, especially since so many remixes are really, really bad. On top of that you can view either daily, weekly, or monthly charts in each category, so take that, Billboard.

It’s currently still in beta, but the only problem I’ve had so far is songs failing to play fully through, but clicking the song again seems to totally fix that problem. One of the main things that they also do which makes them really different from Billboard, is that their top list is only 99 instead of 200. Half of me wants more music to listen to, but the other half of me loves that it’s only 99 and unique, after all, I do work for a site where we decided to rate things out of 7. Besides that, this website is perfect, and moving it out of beta will probably only further blow my mind. It’s hands down one of the friendliest websites to look at, and I think the best place online to find new music. Thanks, We Are Hunted; how else would I have found out about Bon Iver side project, Volcano Choir?