How to Find New Music • Hacker News Board

Re: How to Find New Music

#151

Post by siquick » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:05 AM UTC

usuallymatt wrote: post #26

dTal wrote: post #24

BBC 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?

Great to see those names on HN

Re: How to Find New Music

#152

Post by ssalazar » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

aloukissas wrote: post #147

By far, the best way I've discovered new music is through radio. Find a station with producers that you jive with and this will be a treasure chest. I was lucky enough to grow up in Athens (GR), where radio is really, really good. A big disappointment happened when I moved to SF (which, aside of KCSM - a great jazz radio - is a music radio disappointment). I was lucky to come across KCRW from LA, perhaps the best rad…

In the Bay Area KFJC (Foothills College/Los Altos) and KZSC (UC Santa Cruz) are also both quite good at playing music many listeners wouldnt otherwise discover. You can't get them in SF proper, but great for tuning in when you're down south a bit.

Re: How to Find New Music

#153

Post by throwawaytoday5 » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:10 AM UTC

clSTophEjUdRanu wrote: post #112

Uhhrrr wrote: post #67

Rather than subjecting oneself to the whims of recommendation engines and random people, I recommend starting with the artists you like: -Find out who they've toured with - this is one of the strongest signals possible -Find out who produced their albums, and check out other albums produced by those folks -See if people in their band(s) have released their own work -Read interviews to find out who their influences ar…

This doesn't get me out of my bubble. I'm a huge fan of cheesy synthwave and would have never known had Trevor Something - Death Dream not been a freeleech pick on w.cd years ago. Curation + association is the key.

w.cd had the best recommendation system for music and audio equipment. The communities that tried to take it's place after don't come close.

It's a shame because I don't know where to talk about it anymore. r doesn't come close, at least not yet. The community music collages on w.cd were unreal.

Re: How to Find New Music

#154

Post by giancarlostoro » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:11 AM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #67

Rather than subjecting oneself to the whims of recommendation engines and random people, I recommend starting with the artists you like: -Find out who they've toured with - this is one of the strongest signals possible -Find out who produced their albums, and check out other albums produced by those folks -See if people in their band(s) have released their own work -Read interviews to find out who their influences ar…

True there was a song from a band I used to listen to and I realized it had a name from someone not in the band and found out they were in another band too. It was slightly different style but interesting and enjoyable. So it pays to look further into artists and people involved.

Re: How to Find New Music

#155

Post by shmerl » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:14 AM UTC

Most of the music I discover are games and films soundtracks.

Re: How to Find New Music

#156

Post by kpmcc » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:22 AM UTC

Radio + Discogs.

Find an artist you like, look up the label they were on and see who else was putting out records around that time.

Find a dj or radio station you like and find the tracklists.

Music selections curated by humans have far surpassed what algorithms have given me.

Re: How to Find New Music

#157

Post by dgzl » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:23 AM UTC

If you're looking for new music but don't want to dig into it, I suggest just looking for remixes of songs you already love.

Myself and a friend became radio hosts for our college radio (KBVR, national award winners) and I realized this was a great opportunity to learn about and discover new music. Over the next year, every week I would go onto YouTube and follow suggestions from some music I already knew until I got into weird stuff that I'd never heard before. Before long I found thriving subcultures of not only fresh and modern EDM, but also really awesome remixes of existing music. Finding remixes of music I already loved was a thrilling experience, I've never had so much fun looking for music online.

One day I found this gem of a Kenny Chesney "American Kids" remix and ripped it to my laptop to play on that week's show. Maybe a few days after, the song was gone due to copyright violation. Now I can't find any trace of this glorious mix online, only in my personal stash.

If anyone is interested, I highly suggest Majestic Casual on YouTube, and The Magician on SoundCloud.

Re: How to Find New Music

#158

Post by davidwparker » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:23 AM UTC

joseph wrote: post #101

slouch wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What feature of Spotify was "not very good" for finding new artists? edit: possible answers might be "Artist Radio", "my Discover Weekly playlist", "Related Artists page", "my Daily Mix playlists"

I don't think Spotify has any good features for finding new artists. I've used all of the ones you mentioned and generally don't like the playlists. Usually they play songs I already know, and the new ones they introduce I just skip. I get a very small hit rate of new music to listen to from Spotify versus other channels.

`and the new ones they introduce I just skip`

I think I found your problem. My Discover Weekly is always filled with great new artists I've never heard of, and there's generally at least 3-6 songs that I think are great (and want to explore the artist further). Note that I listened to roughly ~80,000 minutes of music last year (according to Spotify wrapped) with 7,600 songs played, so it wasn't a small amount.

Re: How to Find New Music

#159

Post by janee » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:26 AM UTC

rphillips wrote: post #150

aloukissas wrote: post #147

By far, the best way I've discovered new music is through radio. Find a station with producers that you jive with and this will be a treasure chest. I was lucky enough to grow up in Athens (GR), where radio is really, really good. A big disappointment happened when I moved to SF (which, aside of KCSM - a great jazz radio - is a music radio disappointment). I was lucky to come across KCRW from LA, perhaps the best rad…

+1 to KEXP and KCRW (and KCRW's Eclectic 24). KEXP plays a ton of great music of different varieties of music, some of which, I wouldn't normally listen to.

I only recently discovered KEXP...strangely enough through a random youtube video of a live performance from Austra.

I've also had some success with BBC Radio 1 in the past.

Radio can be a good source but I still feel music recommendations is something that's gonna be cracked by algos in the future

Re: How to Find New Music

#160

Post by paranoidrobot » Fri, Jan 31, 2020, 3:28 AM UTC

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #73

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…

I have also had really good luck finding music on youtube, especially independent house/electronic music. The youtube recommendation algorithm was really good for music until a few months ago. Not sure what they changed, but I'm seeing the same videos pop up over and over, and those videos are more "mainstream" as well. People rag on youtube, but I've found so much amazing content on there just by searching around an…

Youtube's recommendations seems to go through phases, and it depends entirely on the device I use to watch it.

On PC I get one lot of content, on mobile another, and on my Smart TV yet another, despite being signed into the same account everywhere.

The best way I've found to find new music is actually on their app for my Smart TV . Unfortunately the Youtube leanback/tv mode for the PC seems to have disappeared, so it's hard to show how different it is.

It'll show me the same stuff over again, and then randomly every few months it's like "Oh, here's a whole heap of stuff you've never seen before, that's been on the platform for years".