Where Do You Find New Music To Love?

[navelgazer]

Commercial radio is a repetitive, focus-grouped wasteland.  I get stabby when I'm in the car and three of my six programmed stations are all playing "Hotel California" or "Breakdown" at the same time.  I let music go when I got obsessed with politics, but now seems like as good a time as any to get back into it again. 

My favorite way of finding good music is talking to musicians.  I used to hang out at Mike Portnoy's web site and I found all of the black/death/power/prog metal I could ever listen to.  I used to subscribe to Alternative Press, but not Rolling Stone.  And I'm lucky that I have a fantastic music store in Portland that hasn't gone out of business or cut their carried music section down to the top 40 like the big chain stores have done. 

One other favorite tool is the Music Map.  You plug in a band you like and it will map out spatially other bands that are similar/related so you can see which direction you want to go in.  For example, I plugged in a band named Haggard, a sort of gothic/symphonic/folk metal combination, and I got Orphaned Land, which is everything I could hope for and more. 

Edited December 25, 2017 by navelgazer

[MargeGunderson]

The Music Map is pretty cool, thanks for sharing!

Edited December 26, 2017 by MargeGunderson

[Sandman87]

I recommend college radio stations for music that cures the commercial radio blues. Especially the stations where you get a new DJ every three or four hours, and each one plays whatever genre of music they feel like. Listen to one of those for a couple of weeks and it's hard not to find something you like. Of course you'll also probably hear some things you can't stand.

NPR radio stations are fairly good for getting exposure to different kinds of music too.

 

14 hours ago, navelgazer said:

One other favorite tool is the Music Map.

I dunno about that map. I plugged in "Frank Zappa", and it put him a hell of a lot closer to "Talking Heads" than it did to "Frank Zappa & the Mothers" or "The Mothers of Invention."

Edited December 26, 2017 by Sandman87

[Dandesun]

A lot of times, the new music I love is the old music I skipped when I was younger and obsessed with something else.

Right now, I'm hard-core deep into rediscovering Bruce Springsteen's entire catalog and, I have to say, it's pretty astounding.

[LADreamr]

I find that new music I'm going to love often finds me.  I also like to follow music supervisors on social media, because they often post about music I would never have heard otherwise.

[amaranta]

I still stream on Pandora (free version) on occasion because I find that they have remained consistently the best regarding recommended listening.  I have ten stations set up and keep it on shuffle all the time so I get a good cross genre mix.  A thumbs up automatically adds for playing again.  Plus, I'm loyal - I've been on there since the beginning and I like to be supportive. :-)

I hear a surprising number of songs I like on soundtracks, both TV and movies.  I found Barns Courtney from Burnt and have liked most of his stuff, and quite a few other artists as well (Cold War Kids, Moon Taxi, Cage the Elephant, etc.)  Sometimes a soundtrack will also remind me of older songs that I used to play and I'll go 'Hey! I still like that' and I'll add it to my playlist. (I just had this happen with songs by The Buzzcocks, Phantom Planet, and The New Pornographers.)

For daily streaming I'm on Amazon's Music unlimited.  Already being a prime member made it a much cheaper monthly fee; it was actually free for a bit when first introduced (for members) and I decided to keep it.  I'm already Bezo's bitch - two Fire tablets, the Fire TV stick and let's say hi to Alexa...  They are kind of hit and miss on recommendations though. I have a rotating favorites playlist that I change up every month or so.  And I just surprised myself - in my general songs library I have 9,051 songs. Even giving that's it's been a few years I'm wondering now how I have so many.  One of these days I have to make a yet to be listened to section and find out what hell I've got.

I can't remember the last time I turned on a radio.  I have heard some pop, rock and R&B/hiphop when in friends' cars but, yeah, that can get pretty repetitive on the songs that get played.  I listen primarily to rock, singer/ songwriter, and to some hip hop and reggae.

[SunnyBeBe]

On 12/26/2017 at 7:37 PM, Dandesun said:

A lot of times, the new music I love is the old music I skipped when I was younger and obsessed with something else.

Right now, I'm hard-core deep into rediscovering Bruce Springsteen's entire catalog and, I have to say, it's pretty astounding.

I didn't know who Zeppelin was until I was 30 years old! lol  And I never listened to Carole King's Tapestry, until even later.  Late bloomer, but, have been trying to catch up. 

I listen to the radio, realizing its limitations, but, also go online and search around.  Sometimes, you'll find some interesting music being played in tv shows or in movies.  Tough to track down though. 

Edited January 3, 2018 by SunnyBeBe

[Dandesun]

2 hours ago, SunnyBeBe said:

I didn't know who Zeppelin was until I was 30 years old! lol  And I never listened to Carole King's Tapestry, until even later.  Late bloomer, but, have been trying to catch up. 

I listen to the radio, realizing its limitations, but, also go online and search around.  Sometimes, you'll find some interesting music being played in tv shows or in movies.  Tough to track down though. 

Ha! I sadly very much knew who Zeppelin was because my brother loved them and played them all the time when we were teenagers and our rooms were right next to each other. So much so that I couldn't listen to them for years. That has changed within the last decade though but, yeah, he totally ruined them for me for ages.

[Enigma X]

Zeppelin has been my favorite band since I discovered them on my own when I was five after  Bonham died and they disbanded.

 

I discover new music through movie and TV soundtracks and commercials (not promoting a radio station).  Too many aps and streaming services have a very weird algorithm of predicting like music. It never works for me.

 

(Also, I am a huge Springsteen fan too.)

[janie jones]

On 12/31/2017 at 1:47 PM, amaranta said:

I still stream on Pandora (free version) on occasion because I find that they have remained consistently the best regarding recommended listening.  I have ten stations set up and keep it on shuffle all the time so I get a good cross genre mix.  A thumbs up automatically adds for playing again.  Plus, I'm loyal - I've been on there since the beginning and I like to be supportive. :-)

Yeah, this is how I've found a couple bands that I really like recently.  But more than 10 stations!  I sometimes feel like I should delete some of mine, but most of the time, I don't feel like I can part with any!

[RealHousewife]

Music Map looks pretty cool, thank you! 

I will listen to random stuff on Spotify, and I echo music finds me. I'll discover new songs while I'm shopping, watching movies, TV, from friends and family, occasionally radio, although I prefer Spotify. 

[Anduin]

Sometimes I look up best new [genre] of [year]. Or have your favourite musicians played in other bands? Who have they toured with? Or when I'm watching a music video on YT, what else does the all powerful algorithm suggest?