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Ask HN: How do you discover music?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you discover music?

#11

Post by piva00 »

user_named wrote: post #6

Spotifys algorithm doesn't do anything. YouTube is a tiny bit better. But it's very difficult. You need to click around to get out of the algorithm that shows the same thing for six months.

> Spotifys algorithm doesn't do anything.

What do you mean by this? I discover a lot of music through Spotify.

My mix for discovery usually goes through:

1. Labels that release artists I already like

2. Recommendations from friends

3. Spotify recommendations algos (Discover Weekly, mixes, radio feature, etc.)

4. Music zines/magazines/blogs/critics.

5. Bandcamp recommendations (not so good but worth to check here and there).

Spotify is pretty good to recommend very similar tracks or artists, never had an issue with it so would be keen to hear what's your issue.

Re: Ask HN: How do you discover music?

#12

Post by gandalfgreybeer »

oxff wrote: post #3

Recommendation algorithms are mostly garbage, I find most of it through RYM by browsing the charts / clicking on people's profiles and seeing their highly rated albums. Human curated > machine curated still.

I wholeheartedly agree with human curation especially on the long term outlook. Sure the algorithm gives you a bunch of new stuff in the first few months but after a while you’re just stuck in a minima. Also I think my taste evolves quickly enough but algorithms box you in to what your preferences were.

I may not like everything in a human curated list but I’m exposed to more things that can have sudden jumps from my current localization.

Re: Ask HN: How do you discover music?

#14

Post by bheadmaster »

There's a website called Every Noise At Once [0] which contains a list of almost every genre of music in the world. Each genre has a linked Spotify playlist with a few hundred songs of the given genre. And once I'm in that genre, I mostly just let Spotify algorithms do their thing to get me new stuff.

[0] https://everynoise.com/

Re: Ask HN: How do you discover music?

#15

Post by zquestz »

Primarily I stream from Pandora, Spotify and Soundcloud through Sonos. Then I have Sonos scrobble everything to Last.fm.

I still find Pandora to be the best for finding new artists, I just create new stations and see what they recommend.

Re: Ask HN: How do you discover music?

#19

Post by sshine »

I discover music through Spotify.

You could say "Spotify's algorithm", but you need to help it. It is more their links between artists that I use, and the general availability of a lot of artists. (Not as many as on YouTube.)

If I have found a lot of great, new music this week, next week's "Discover Weekly" and the albums recommended in "Home" are better.

Most of the music I find is by looking at the tracks I'm already playing: Maybe I only heard one song from an artist, maybe I only ever listened to their old stuff, or maybe I only ever listened to their new stuff. Maybe it's a remix, and the featured artist is the one I like, so I listen to their top songs.

I've learned that whatever one-hit wonder people have -- the song that everyone plays 10 times more often than their second-most popular song -- is often a good choice if you're assessing a musician. But if you like them, it's also likely that your favorite song isn't everyone else's.

I mostly listen to electronic music without vocals, so I can play a lot of random music while I work, and occasionally something sticks out in a good or a bad way.

Last year I spent 65000 minutes listening to music on Spotify.

Re: Ask HN: How do you discover music?

#20

Post by 10729287 »

I've been involved in punk/hardcore community for decades now and I've got my sources : friends, blogs, forums, last fm follows... For anything else I listen to the radio, especially fip.fr who expose me to Music I wouldn't think I could love. Also, i mainly listen to albums, never playlists, automated or curated ones. I don't believe in recommendation algos and don't feel the need to get into that way of discovering music and leave that passion to a company. I always loved to dig into stores crates or read reviews and I fear the infinite of choice from streaming platforms or being stuck in a bubble. There's like something "unpure" and Betrayal to how I used to love music in Spotify recommandations and the way it pushes always something new. It may sounds puerile or posh but that's just how I feel, i'm very oldschool and conservative regarding this topic.
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