About Us
3hive started as a humble music blog back in 2004. The brainchild of Sam, Sean, and Jon, the blog was run by a collective of friends wanting to connect and discover new music. With each founding member bringing a background in music journalism and radio, the blog served as a way to provide an answer to the question—what are you listening to?
The driving force behind 3hive was the concept of “sharing the sharing”, as Sam, Sean, and Jon noticed that many of their favorite indie and self-released bands would put out a handful of MP3s as free downloads to promote their albums. Other popular music blogs of the time were hosting ripped MP3s, usually without the bands’ permission. 3hive decided to limit themselves to highlighting only the bands already sharing MP3s—including artists on Suicide Squeeze, Mush, Ghostly International, Polyvinyl, Jagjaguwar, and other nascent indie labels. Early blog posts featured embedded MP3 URLs with blurbs about the songs; over time, the approach evolved to include YouTube links, SoundCloud tracks, and Spotify playlists—all centered around the goal of promoting music discovery.
After several successful years of building a readership, time constraints nearly led to the end of the 3hive blog. Just as the founders considered folding, Todd (now a long-time employee of 3hive) reached out expressing his desire to write for the blog. A longtime reader of the blog, Todd breathed new life into 3hive. Over nearly 20 years, 3hive has championed more than 2300 artists and reached over 100,000 unique users worldwide.
In 2017, 3hive embarked on a new journey by adding vinyl sales to the blog. Because the founders were already purchasing a high quantity of vinyl for themselves, they decided to begin buying their favorite titles wholesale. 3hive initially never carried more than a few titles at a time, and would move on to other albums once all copies were sold. At least, that’s how it started.
Inevitably, Sam got carried away and his basement began to fill with records. With consistent sales on both Discogs and the blog, Sam transitioned into holding vinyl pop-ups at the cult-favorite music gallery, Velour, in Provo, Utah. After a year, he finally decided to make the jump to a brick-and-mortar store, 3hive Record Lounge, which opened in November of 2018.
The shop started off small, open only on weekends, half-filled with wooden shelves and folding tables, and run by Sam and his two sons, Miles and Owen. Over the last five years, 3hive Record Lounge has grown into a thriving community hub with dedicated customers and over 8,000 different titles spanning a wide variety of genres. Its team of ten employees contributes a broad taste in music and individual strengths that have helped shape the shop into what it is today. 3hive offers a welcoming space for all to gather, share, converse, and discover new music.
In 2022, Sam and Todd launched Radio 3hive, a 24/7 streaming radio station with handpicked programming and shows hosted by store employees and friends of 3hive.
