How to discover new music?

[cyruz]

You sir, have no taste! ;-)

I admit it to myself very often and then I thank God

 

[Mariner9]

"How do you discover new music?"

In the olden days, I went to record shops and talked to the staff. You can end up in all sorts of trouble that way.

Nowadays:

• I follow artists or labels on Beatport. I get an email each Friday with new releases
• I follow labels on Bandcamp. This is far from perfect as you can't really follow artists, so if an artist you like releases a track on a label you don't follow, you can still miss it
• I follow artists or labels on Soundcloud
• I signed up for the email distribution lists of labels I like that have their own websites
• I download mixes and find new music by listening to them
• I participate in online music forums

It's a lot harder than it used to be simply because of the volume of new music being released. Digitization of production and distribution means more quantity but less quality. Probably better overall as computing and the internet have broadened participation, but not all positive (you can't have a lock-in party at an online record store!)

 

[bluefuzz]

I don't love using Spotify / Apple Music recommendations. Their algorithms often pick music that's exactly like what I already like.

The trouble with Spotify is that they are always fiddling with their algorithms and changing the interface about - not always successfully. It's true their recommendations can get in a rut but, perhaps due to my extremely schizophrenic music tastes, it generally manages to find something good. A couple of weeks ago my Discover Weekly was fantastically good, filled with great new (to me) tracks. But since I've recently been taking a deep dive into some of the more obscure 60s and 70s soul/R'n'B my recent recommendations are somewhat overburdened with afros and gold medallions. This is fine but I'll have to remember to play some Jimmy Shand polkas or Melt-Banana to give the algorithm something to chew on again ...

It would be a strange algorithm that started recommending Fela Kuti, Rachmaninov and Tammy Wynette if all you play is Norwegian black metal however pleasing that would be ... ;-)

 

[bluefuzz]

For people of a certain age and upbringing the John Peel Show on BBC radio was the motherlode of music discovery. JP is sorely missed, but many of his broadcasts are archived on The Perfumed Garden blog. Often in gloriously wobbly 3rd generation cassette copies from a badly tuned AM radio. It's just like being there! And there's still lots of great 'new' music to be discovered in those shows ...

 

[Beershaun]

In addition to +1 to all that others have already said; I use Plex as my media server/player with Tidal integration. I can cue up an artist, or album from my collection and click "artist radio" and Plex starts pulling in new music from my collection AND Tidal creating a radio stream on the fly exposing me to all kinds of new stuff. It's freaking magic!

 

[Eetu]

Sites like Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, Quietus.. I also listen to NTS a lot.

 

[Robin L]

Sorry, which place is this?

San Francisco, California. One time hipster hangout, now Yuppieville.

 

[SIY]

I find out who musicians I like are listening to.

 

[Katji]

For people of a certain age and upbringing the John Peel Show on BBC radio was the motherlode of music discovery. JP is sorely missed, but many of his broadcasts are archived on The Perfumed Garden blog. Often in gloriously wobbly 3rd generation cassette copies from a badly tuned AM radio. It's just like being there! And there's still lots of great 'new' music to be discovered in those shows ...

Of a certain age...They taught us a song about him at school.

 

[Chrispy]

I've found that you need to feed the algorithm so it can offer some choices in the direction you want. I found Pandora especially good a while back, and you can choose a wide variety of "stations' on which to base suggestions on, and change them as you run into new stuff. Spotify after I built up a base of likes has been pretty good as well. I have fairly eclectic tastes and have enjoyed many of the "new to me" suggestions and have purchased a fair amount of music based on them.

 

[Moderate Dionysianism]

The trouble with Spotify is that they are always fiddling with their algorithms and changing the interface about - not always successfully.

I love how diplomatic you're being there

IMHO they're constantly making it worse. I remember when the Spotify app would notify you immediately when there was a new release from any of the artists you follow. And what do we have today? The 'release radar' playlist updated once per week with just a handful of new tracks. I get 5-10 of those per week despite following close to 1K artists and knowing from other sources that there were more new releases. It's just evolving towards feeding users their payola-based 'suggestions' masquerading as a 'discovery mode'.

Sadly, Tidal seems to have gone down a similar road. At the very bottom of the Tidal Desktop homepage, there used to be a section called 'New Releases for You', with new stuff from artists you follow. I noticed that it disappeared after Jan 1st...

 

[weasels]

I've found that you need to feed the algorithm so it can offer some choices in the direction you want. I found Pandora especially good a while back, and you can choose a wide variety of "stations' on which to base suggestions on, and change them as you run into new stuff. Spotify after I built up a base of likes has been pretty good as well. I have fairly eclectic tastes and have enjoyed many of the "new to me" suggestions and have purchased a fair amount of music based on them.

I've been doing the top 500 listen on Spotify. It has really confused the algorithm, but in a good way

 

[Chrispy]

I've been doing the top 500 listen on Spotify. It has really confused the algorithm, but in a good way

Which top 500 list(s)? Never noticed those before, sure are a lot of variations on that theme....ah, the last one is spotify's most played all-time, might look thru that (but with first two being Ed Sheeran and Post Malone that may not get far).

 

[BostonJack]

I generally ask about what friends are listening to, what I hear at dance parties (pre-pandemic), new jazz artists from FM radio, etc.
I then use those tunes or artist names as seeds to Pandora, which does a good job of locating them and similar artists.

For Jazz, my local (Boston area) friends who are amateur players are a good source. I don't bother owning most music, just having a list of artist specific channels on Pandora satisfies most of my listening desires. (I know, I know, I should upgrade the recording format).

Went skiing with a bunch of my son's grad school friends and listened to 3 hours of Kendrick Lamar. Now I'm a fan. Discovered Sun Ra's early recordings (Space is the Place) on a Pandora collection. My sons are more than happy to recommend hip hop artists.

pretty random.

 

[BostonJack]

There's no doubt that Don van Vliet was one of the greatest musical visionaries of the 20th century, but if you read between the lines of a few Magic Band interviews then it is quite obvious that the Magic Band's input to those compositions – at least post Trout Mask – was rather more than Don would care to admit ...

That video's great but the Music is pretty dull IMO. I'm sure everyone has heard of Babymetal but they are hard to beat for J-Pop insanity – although the the 'Baby' is a bit of a misnomer – the girls being in their 20s by now:

trippy

 

[BostonJack]

I generally ask about what friends are listening to, what I hear at dance parties (pre-pandemic), new jazz artists from FM radio, etc.
I then use those tunes or artist names as seeds to Pandora, which does a good job of locating them and similar artists.

For Jazz, my local (Boston area) friends who are amateur players are a good source. I don't bother owning most music, just having a list of artist specific channels on Pandora satisfies most of my listening desires. (I know, I know, I should upgrade the recording format).

Went skiing with a bunch of my son's grad school friends and listened to 3 hours of Kendrick Lamar. Now I'm a fan. Discovered Sun Ra's early recordings (Space is the Place) on a Pandora collection. My sons are more than happy to recommend hip hop artists.

pretty random.

Go on road trips with people two, three, four decades younger than yourself and let them control the music.
(its not all good, but the discoveries that are good are really good.)

 

[Chrispy]

There's no doubt that Don van Vliet was one of the greatest musical visionaries of the 20th century, but if you read between the lines of a few Magic Band interviews then it is quite obvious that the Magic Band's input to those compositions – at least post Trout Mask – was rather more than Don would care to admit ...

That video's great but the Music is pretty dull IMO. I'm sure everyone has heard of Babymetal but they are hard to beat for J-Pop insanity – although the the 'Baby' is a bit of a misnomer – the girls being in their 20s by now:

van Vliet and Zappa in the same high school has always blown my mind....

Yeah, I'll pass on that babymetal thing....

 

[bluefuzz]

I remember when the Spotify app would notify you immediately when there was a new release from any of the artists you follow.

I always turn off any and all notifications from such services and I don't 'follow' any artists, so those changes haven't really bothered me. Also, a good deal of the 'new' music I discover on Spotify is from 'old' and often even dead artists, so I'm not inundated with the latest 'flavour of the month' recommendations. I seem to find 'new' new music by other means.

 

[weasels]

R

Which top 500 list(s)? Never noticed those before, sure are a lot of variations on that theme....ah, the last one is spotify's most played all-time, might look thru that (but with first two being Ed Sheeran and Post Malone that may not get far).

Right now I'm listening to the Rolling Stone's Top 500 Albums of All Time.

It is subjectively... OK. There are some truly great albums in there and there are others that will cause you to question the selection criteria. Either way, great for exposure to a variety of styles. Not a complete survey of modern music, but worthwhile IMO.

 

[daftcombo]

How to discover new music? Turn off the radio.