Thoughts & Things

Eight Places Online to Find New Music

After discussing "Five Types of Music to Play While Writing" , I thought it might be a good idea to share some ways of discovering some new-to-you tunes, whether it be a new album, artist, song, playlist, or genre. I personally get a lot of joy out of hearing something new to me, and I get joy out of sharing those new finds with my friends. I thought today would be a good day to share some of the places that I hear new music, other than the radio.

Last.fm
Last.fm is one of my longest standing favourite ways to stumble upon something new. If you're trying to find music in a genre you're less than familiar with, simply google the genre and last.fm, and it will provide potentially dozens of artists within that genre on its tag page. If you're a member of last.fm (which is free), the more music you let it know you've heard (when you "scrobble" your music, it keeps track of everything you listen to), the more accurate its recommendation system gets, as it will suggest music to you based on what you've heard. You can also visit artist pages on last.fm, where it will suggest other similar artists. It used to be much easier to search for new stuff, but a couple years back they made some rather unfortunate changes, although they did add a few extra fun statistics.

Spotify
I actually only just started using Spotify about six months ago. It wasn't available in Canada for a long time, so when it became available here I figured I could do without it. Now I have a paid account. If you're using it on a computer or tablet, you don't need to pay, just tolerate their radio style ads. Spotify recommends you artists in their discover section (the more you hear, the more they suggest), and creates daily and weekly playlists for you based upon what you've been listening to. You can search artists, songs, albums, playlists, and genres through their search function. Every artist page has similar artists shown. There are even applications to use in conjunction with Spotify, for example, Forgotify is a browser app that tells you songs that have zero plays on Spotify.

Rate Your Music
Rate Your Music (or RYM) is a good site to use if you particularly enjoy rating and reviewing music or movies. That said, there are a lot of uses for it even if you're lukewarm on the idea of rating your music. If you take the time to rate albums you've heard, it will let you know when other albums by those artists are about to come out or have recently been released. The front page shows a number of reviews that you can browse for new finds. People have created lists of music they liked, music from a certain year, music from a certain place, and so on. You can also view the music collections of other users with similar taste to yours. It can also be fun to see what other people in your area are listening to. RYM also creates a world map marking the locations of artists you've rated. You can also view statistics like which decade you most often rate music from.

Wikipedia
Wikipedia probably seems like an odd one to find music from, but you'd be surprised at how useful it can be if you search the right things. If you look at a particular artist's page (think of an artist you already like), you can find people who have written or produced their music, people they have collaborated with, other bands they were a part of, or other acts they might be associated with. These are all good places to start. You can also search a particular genre or place, for example "metal" or "Music of Cuba" and the corresponding pages will often provide examples of music within those genres or from those places, or even link to full list pages of artists. This can be especially useful if you're trying to find something in a genre you have less experience with, or from a place you've never heard music from. You know Greenland has some pretty solid music selections to choose from? I do, thanks to wikipedia.

Youtube
Youtube is probably the most obvious thing on this entire list, but it's too useful to not include. You can click on related videos in the side bar of the page for a song you already like. If the song is posted by a record company, you can click into their page to see what other artists they have released music from. You can find a playlist for just about anything you can think of, many of which will include at least a few tunes you have yet to hear. If you use youtube enough, they'll even start recommending playlists based on what you've already heard. If you're feeling adventurous, try searching "full album" and listening to the first complete album you aren't familiar with.

Blogs
There are blogs like mine that have a mishmash of things that happen to include music, along with music specific blogs. There is an endless supply of music blogs, and it's just a matter of finding one that suits your preferences. You can find album reviews, show reviews, or lists of music within a certain category. I don't even want to suggest anything particular here, because every music blog brings something different to the table, and each will suit your needs differently. Google can lead you to lists of good music blogs, or to specific music blogs that might help you find what you're looking for. People who write music blogs tend to hear a lot of different music, and often have some really creative recommendations to dole out, along with some really interesting reviews.

Podcasts
Listening to a music podcast is a lot like listening to the radio, although it's a bit more niche. It's also similar to finding music through a blog, but you get to hear examples of what's being described as you hear it being described, although there are a few music podcasts that don't even have talking. Just as with blogs, the best way to find a good music podcast is to search through to find something that best suits your needs. A few of my favourite eclectic music finds have been through podcasts, particularly ones labeled eclectic. That said, it doesn't matter much what you listen to or what you're trying to find, there's probably a podcast for that.

(I have committed to blogging daily with Give It 100. This is Day Thirty-Seven. Five days of leave taken total.)