For my taste, it’s been Radio Paradise for a long time.
what a great interface. Thanks for sharing this.
How to Find New Music
21–30 of 268 posts
Re: How to Find New Music
#22Why was this comment killed? I vouched for it to revive it.
It hit a software filter because of past activities by spammers or trolls. I've cleared that now so it won't happen again.
Please don't post like this in the threads. If you have a question or see a problem, send it to us at hn@ycombinator.com, as the site guidelines ask (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) so we can answer you and fix the issue. If you post to the thread instead, you not only add off-topic noise, the odds are high that we won't see your comment and so can't do anything about it. I only saw this one at random.
I've detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194518.
Re: How to Find New Music
#23FM Radio
Eww. Unless you can find yourself an independent station that actually plays something outside of the top-pops, please, please, count me out. In every Uber and/or cab I end up taking, I ask them to turn the FM radio off. The jazz and classical stations are okay, but then the commercials completely ruin the listening experience - especially for 'chill out' genres like the above. Word of mouth from friends - Spotify or…
A number of low power radio stations came online after the 2013 application window with the FCC. These are hyper local and often very diverse and essentially equivalent to word of mouth. My city has more than one, they cover the city limits and some of the suburbs. One in particular is full of music nerds playing their own niches for an hour or two every week. I do a show myself :)
Re: How to Find New Music
#24BBC 6 Music. Man, does that station ever have its finger on the pulse. You have to be kind of ready for anything, and it's not always easy listening, but you often get pure gold. Not uncommonly, it'll be music that isn't even released yet, or maybe only exists on the artist's Soundcloud page. As a bonus, quite a few of its DJs are famous people who you didn't know are really into some musical niche.
On the other hand, my friend-who-consistently-finds-cool-music pretty much only listens to Soundcloud, and whatever it recommends. It seems to be the most popular platform these days for a certain type of eclectic artist.
Re: How to Find New Music
#25I am in the very fortunate position that despite living way out in the boonies, I have a proper, brick-and-mortar record store of the High Fidelity kind within an hour's travel from home. Both the guys running it have an encyclopedic knowledge of a number of genres, and there's always a few customers browsing the shelves which will merrily question you about your preferences, before veering off on a tangent, getting into a heated argument with the other patrons and the owner as to what record will be the right one for me, we'll put the winning selection on, eager, anticipating eyes on me as the first chords fill the store, awaiting my reaction...
I love that place.
Point is - while Spotify's algorithms are brilliant at determining what music I might like based on similar music I've listened to in the past, I find there's no substitute for enthusiastic, knowledgeable fans.
Re: How to Find New Music
#26BBC 6 Music. Man, does that station ever have its finger on the pulse. You have to be kind of ready for anything, and it's not always easy listening, but you often get pure gold. Not uncommonly, it'll be music that isn't even released yet, or maybe only exists on the artist's Soundcloud page. As a bonus, quite a few of its DJs are famous people who you didn't know are really into some musical niche. On the other hand…
Came here to say 6Music too. It's an absolute goldmine and I've discovered some great stuff on there (Nils Frahm, Hannah Peel, Anna Meridith, Erland Cooper, Big Thief). I'm more into contemporary instrumental stuff these days but enjoy other genres, too.
I usually listen to Mary-Anne Hobbs, Tom Ravenscroft, Guy Garvey, Cillian Murphy whenever he's on. Which DJs do you recommend on there?
Re: How to Find New Music
#27I built https://www.nextweeksplaylist.com to help me more easily listen to bands coming in town, I know a few people here on HN enjoy using it too.
Re: How to Find New Music
#28Anyone remember back on what.cd the related artists "web" system? That was my favorite way to find music, and since the site's demise, I have yet to find a comparable way of discovering similar artists.
Luckily back then, I started following many of my favorite artists and labels on social media, which sort of created a new wave of recommendations based on what those artists are talking about. It works, but it's not the same as that magical "web" of suggestions.
Re: How to Find New Music
#29Other than the stuff already mentioned (subreddits, blogs, playlists, word of mouth) I discover a ton of music via human-programmed streaming "radio".
I know it's not as big a thing as it was in the mid-late 2000's but there are still thousands of Shoutcast/Icecast/etc. stations and many of them are programmed by DJs, music enthusiasts, and fans. A good set of bookmarks is like having a radio dial filled with 10 or 20 college radio stations (or whatever analogue you would consider to be the ideal type of radio for your tastes.)
I've been listening to streaming radio since the early 2000's and one of the main reasons I bought my first smartphone (Palm Treo!) was because I could install a Winamp clone and listen in the car, on headphones, or wherever I was. I still do this today--albeit on a slightly nicer phone.
Re: How to Find New Music
#30Other than the stuff already mentioned (subreddits, blogs, playlists, word of mouth) I discover a ton of music via human-programmed streaming "radio". I know it's not as big a thing as it was in the mid-late 2000's but there are still thousands of Shoutcast/Icecast/etc. stations and many of them are programmed by DJs, music enthusiasts, and fans. A good set of bookmarks is like having a radio dial filled with 10 or 2…
That's awesome. I totally agree, nothing substitutes human curation