Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#41

Post by freehunter » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

I used Spotify for a while but was never happy with their discover playlists. When Apple Music came out I used the trial to see if their discover (New For You) playlists was better. It's far from perfect but I found it better than Spotify.

I also live in an area with absolutely garbage local radio stations and a lot of cell phone dead areas so I have SiriusXM. You have to stay away from the pop channels (including the decade-specific channels and popular rock/hip hop channels) but on the fringe channels you can find some interesting music. From the app you can pivot what you've found into a Pandora playlist.

SomaFM is also pretty good beyond their more popular ambient playlists.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#42

Post by frereubu » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:53 PM UTC

Currently Wikipedia. I discovered it when I started off with 1970s American composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Jon Gibson. Reading through their entries I fell down a rabbit hole that led to some really great early modular synth musicians like Laurie Spiegel, Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Orchestra and Tonto's Expanding Head Band.

Wikipedia is also where I finally caught up with Robert Wyatt, who I totally fell in love with, particularly Nothing Can Stop Us which has a wonderful cover version of At Last I Am Free by Chic.

It's a great place to find side projects too, like the eponymous album by Klark Kent, an early alter-ego of Stewart Copeland, the drummer from The Police.

In terms of more recent stuff, mostly my Spotify Friends Activity feed. I follow a few people whose taste I really enjoy, and they're constantly coming up with good stuff. I find the auto-generated lists by Spotify are either mediocre - where I feel like I'm just being pandered to - or simply bizarre.

Edit: Matt Sweeney also posts good stuff on Twitter - https://twitter.com/theheavyjamz

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#43

Post by dingus » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

hootbootscoot wrote: post #15

bandcamp. it's turned into a bit of a community, and you can rest assured that sales go to the releasing entity (8% bandcamp fee.) as well as not shunting sales into low-return streaming. I use it both for my musical releases and for finding new music across the spectrum. The entities putting music on there are largely the ones making it, not some corporate entities that don't have time for fans... (itunes, spotify,…

I recently got tired of streaming, and started collecting music the "old" way and rebuilding my library.

Bandcamp has been awesome for this. $10 for a DRM-free album in Flac is perfect, most other services are charging double that for lossless downloads. It's a win-win that the sales go more to the artists as well.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#44

Post by iforgotmypass » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

I outsource this job to the top world DJs. Namely - I usually listen to some type of electronic music (EDM sub-genres, trance, etc.), so the last few years I've been listening to the radio shows of the top producers and djs (in a format of podcasts). That gives me a steady stream of the newest and hottest songs that have been unearthed and hand picked by experienced djs.

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#45

Post by madengr » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

What’s good for classical, primarily string quartets?

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#46

Post by freehunter » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:56 PM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #26

BjoernKW wrote: post #18

Spotify. Their “Discover more artists.” / “Fans also like.” feature has provided me with quite a few interesting bands I didn’t know before. Their curated genre playlists are fantastic as well. I mostly listen to progressive metal / progressive rock and occasionally some electronic music, too. Their algorithms and curated content work well even for those not-exactly-mainstream genres.

That hardly ever works for me. It's either "here's another artist that's like these ones, only more mediocre" or completely crazy ones, like a playlist of the album Ilana (The Creator) by Mdou Moctar, a Berber electric guitarist, where Spotify recommendations are all for Tyler The Creator.

>Mdou Moctar, a Berber electric guitarist

Holy crap, I heard this guy years ago and loved his work, but then forgot his name and couldn't find him again. Thank you for bringing this music back to me!

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#47

Post by frereubu » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

dontreact wrote: post #36

frereubu wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hardly ever works for me. It's either "here's another artist that's like these ones, only more mediocre" or completely crazy ones, like a playlist of the album Ilana (The Creator) by Mdou Moctar, a Berber electric guitarist, where Spotify recommendations are all for Tyler The Creator.

You should check out Tinariwen https://youtu.be/WcqlOq1cjjc

Yeah, I love Tinariwen. Interesting piece of trivia - I saw the guitarist Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Zwan, Bonnie Prince Billy, touring with Iggy Pop etc. etc. etc.) mention Mdou Moctar on Twitter a few times, and was about to recommend Tinariwen, only to discover that he'd played on one of their albums!

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#48

Post by frereubu » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #46

frereubu wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That hardly ever works for me. It's either "here's another artist that's like these ones, only more mediocre" or completely crazy ones, like a playlist of the album Ilana (The Creator) by Mdou Moctar, a Berber electric guitarist, where Spotify recommendations are all for Tyler The Creator.

>Mdou Moctar, a Berber electric guitarist Holy crap, I heard this guy years ago and loved his work, but then forgot his name and couldn't find him again. Thank you for bringing this music back to me!

His latest album is incredible - there are days I have Tarhatazed on a loop for an hour or two when coding (you need to be in the right frame of mind for that to work though!)

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#49

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 6:00 PM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #42

Currently Wikipedia. I discovered it when I started off with 1970s American composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Jon Gibson. Reading through their entries I fell down a rabbit hole that led to some really great early modular synth musicians like Laurie Spiegel, Mother Mallard's Portable Masterpiece Orchestra and Tonto's Expanding Head Band. Wikipedia is also where I finally caught up with Robert Wyatt, who I…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Where do you find new music to listen to online?

#50

Post by Jarcel » Sat, Aug 17, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

anotheryou wrote: post #25

If you use spotify and like skipping through tracks and albums this is amazing: https://discoverquickly.com/

This is awesome, I'm a heavy Spotify user and really like to get a taste of completely new playlists and this is exactly what I hoped for. Thank you for sharing.