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How to Find New Music

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Re: How to Find New Music

#41

Post by semitext »

Having conversations about music with people is half the fun in my mind. It’s a creative medium so talking to people that have unexpected associations leads to lots of wonderful surprises in discovering new music. Also having context is also a huge part of deriving pleasure from a piece.

Algorithms that feed you stuff that all sounds similar is great if you need background music while you do chores or studying, etc. but for when you are listening to stuff more actively conversations with people is essential in my mind.

Re: How to Find New Music

#42

Post by mg »

fetus8 wrote: post #28

Anyone 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…

I run https://www.music-map.com which might be similar to what you describe?

I have never seen (or heard about) the what.cd related artists web.

Let me see if I can find a video or images about it...

Re: How to Find New Music

#43

Post by ValentineC »

Stoids wrote: post #39
fetus8 wrote: post #28

Anyone 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…

I miss reading the 100 page threads on What.CD about which of the 40 different rips of the White Album was best. Alternatives have popped up, but it saddens me that we lost all of that collective comment history.

I was part of What.CD (and its successors), but if I'm wondering which edition to snatch, I usually search the Steve Hoffman forums [1] and look up the Dynamic Range DB [2].

[1] https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/forums/music-corner.2/

[2] http://dr.loudness-war.info/

Re: How to Find New Music

#44

Post by slouch »

ronjouch wrote: post #35

These days I find tons of new music through https://daily.bandcamp.com/ . No blinders, you'll get hip-hop, then doom metal, then Philippines traditional music. I like this much more than recommendation engines that only make little circles around what you know. And buying music on Bandcamp, musicians get a fairer share than they do on big platforms.

It's such a shame that bandcamp is the worst music service ever because they have their hearts in the right place.

Re: How to Find New Music

#45

Post by CrackpotGonzo »

fetus8 wrote: post #28

Anyone 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…

Yes! Completely agree that it was the best and nothing has filled the gap since. Such a shame.

Re: How to Find New Music

#46

Post by reroute1 »

lostgame wrote: post #14
pmoriarty wrote: post #7

I'm surprised this article doesn't mention youtube, which is a major way of finding new music for me. Not only can I find new music through videos that youtube selects as related to ones I like, but listening to playlists that contain music that I like is another great way to find new music, and so is listening through the other music posted by people who post music that I like. And then, of course, one always has th…

But YouTube's quality is such hot garbage, and the ads, oh, God, the ads. Nothing ruins the experience of a perfectly good album like Miles Davis' 'Kind of Blue' more than a jump from cool jazz to an ad for Grammarly that's a full 5-10db louder than what I was listening to. If YouTube's audio quality was worth listening to, YouTube Premium might be a thing, but Spotify and Apple Music have it down to a science, and,…

I had tons of music on google playlists and almost stopped due to ads. Firefox extensions and ad blockers have made it my go to playlist spot again.

Re: How to Find New Music

#47

Post by chasing »

If you care about music, find human creators and curators (record labels, well-run stores, reviewers, DJs, etc) you like and pay attention to what they're doing. Talk to them, even. There are likely some of these people within a degree or two of you socially.

Use algorithms only if you're at a complete loss and need a bit of help serendipitously stumbling onto any of the above, but don't rely on them.

Re: How to Find New Music

#48

Post by hotgoldminer »

Here's how you find new music: peer to peer. Soulseek is what I recommend. The value is unlocked when you search for something relatively niche. You'll find users that have what you're looking for and can then browse their shared directory and download other stuff that you haven't heard of but appears interesting. If you like what you find, buy it. P2P is life.

Re: How to Find New Music

#49

Post by garretthenry »

mg wrote: post #42
fetus8 wrote: post #28

Anyone 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…

I run https://www.music-map.com which might be similar to what you describe? I have never seen (or heard about) the what.cd related artists web. Let me see if I can find a video or images about it...

I use music map all the time! It's intuitive, and I've found it pretty accurate as well. Well done.

Re: How to Find New Music

#50

Post by avolcano »

My extremely modern recommendation for those feeling like they have no good sources: have y'all tried reading more blogs?

I still read Stereogum (which recently went independent again after being owned by Billboard) and Pitchfork. I stay reasonably on top of popular music with them - Stereogum in particular strikes an amazing balance between having good coverage of straight-up pop while still giving coverage to often-ignored genres like hardcore and grime. Their writers certainly have their blindspots, and they are driven by popular label press releases as much honest discovery, but that's kind of why I read them - I want to stay on top of the zeitgeist.

I think if you have specific tastes, you should find sources covering your niches. I also think that if you live in a major city, you may want to find local coverage - I read Brooklyn Vegan, which is (unsurprisingly given the name) also mainly focused on mainstream indie, also but covers a lot of smaller artists who are coming through NYC soon. I've managed to see a lot of live music I never would have heard of thanks to them.

I am also interested in working on better ways to discover music. I've been working on a small Twitter-like social network for sharing new music on and off for the past few years, somewhat comparable to This Is My Jam. It doesn't do any fancy algorithms or anything, it just presents music your friends post in a form that's easy to listen back to (via Spotify and Apple Music SDKs - would love to have more sources someday, but Soundcloud and Bandcamp don't really have APIs for this, and obviously hosting content is a minefield). I'm watching the comments on this thread closely for inspiration on this - right now I've just been using it with a couple friends and thinking about how it might expand in the future :)

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