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Ask HN: Discovering new music?

30 points| superted | 16 years ago

How do you go about discovering new music? I find it easy to listen to the same old favourites, and would love a music-equivalent to hacker news. A lot of services, like last.fm and spotify, recommend music based on my listening habits, which definitely is an excellent functionality. I would, however, love to be fed recommendations somewhat uncorrelated to my current taste, in order to broaden my views. Any suggestions where to look?

35 comments

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[+] recurser|16 years ago|reply
I don't mean to promote piracy or derail the discussion, but if you're a what.cd member you can usually find interesting new stuff by watching the daily and weekly top 10 lists. Also, searching by tag for your favourite genres and sorting by seeders often reveals stuff you may have missed in the past.
[+] smanek|16 years ago|reply
Stupid question - but how does one go about becoming a what.cd member?
[+] ZeroGravitas|16 years ago|reply
You ask for "new music" but in the longer question you seem to be asking for music that is new to you, two very different things.

I'm more interested in finding good music, than new (produced in the last X years) music, in fact I probably have a distinct preference for older music so with that in mind here's some techniques I use.

Last.fm has "similar to artist X" radio but I think it's actually "people who listen to Artist X also listen to" radio which I find gives good results as long as you don't choose highly popular artists (or those that are listened to by boring people) as that seems to average things out to the point that I've already heard the music and nothing surprises me. For my tastes I found "music that is listened to by people who listen to Eels" was interesting. It also worked with "Sly and the Family Stone". What I peronally like about this is that it's a mix of stuff I know and like with new and interesting music so the new stuff gets a chance to creep up on me.

BBC Radio 6 Music is basically a bunch of musos playing good tunes. So good in fact that they're alledgedly going to kill it soon in some big reshuffle, enjoy it while it lasts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/

Since they log every track they play on last.fm you can also listen to BBC Radio 6 style music on Last.fm here:

http://www.last.fm/listen/user/bbc6music/personal

My own personal fave tactic is to research my favourite bands and listen to the music they liked (including who they cover, namecheck, sample, work with etc.). This rarely lets me down. It also helps to have a circle of friends doing likewise as it can be time intensive.

[+] rosejn|16 years ago|reply
Tryout http://kgnu.org if you want to expand your horizons. They have a live stream and a back catalog from the last two weeks of shows. It's a non-profit station in Boulder, Co, and they get hundreds of new CDs a month representing every kind of international music and out-there genre you could imagine. Jazz and beyond, musica mundi, jam sandwich, reggae blood-lines, old-grass/new-grass, and african roots are some of my favorites. The morning and afternoon sound alternatives vary a lot, but once you find DJs you like you can track them. You won't find any top 40 or pop, but you wouldn't have asked this question if that's what you wanted.
[+] MikeW|16 years ago|reply
http://hypem.com is probably my favourite simply because I've learned of so much music I've bought because of that site. I especially love the remixes and mashups.

https://old.thesixtyone.com is also a pretty good site for finding interesting music.

[+] jrnkntl|16 years ago|reply
I like to listen to 22tracks. These are lists in different kinds of genres with selected songs by a number of DJs in Amsterdam. I discover new music this way everyday in genres I'd normally never listen to. http://www.22tracks.com
[+] jriddycuz|16 years ago|reply
Read about the development and individuals involved with the history of different types of music. I suggest this because you probably won't instantly like styles of music that are significantly different from what you already listen to. For example, if you're not familiar with jazz, listening to an acclaimed classic like Miles Davis' Kind of Blue might strike you as boring, or as just cool mood music, but when you have developed an ear for it, it's mind blowing.

Unfortunately, it seems like there is a sore lack of good criticism--critical studies of music that attempt to understand the music more than rate it--and this is especially true of popular music (pop, rock, rap, country, electronica, etc.). I can think of one place that's really good for rock history: Only Solitaire (http://starling.rinet.ru/music/index.htm). That guy's opinions are certainly not the last word on that music, but he does do a good job of putting artists and albums in context. For other kinds of music, maybe start with a Wikipedia article and go from there and see what you find.

[+] gyardley|16 years ago|reply
I recommend reading some good review blogs over anything algorithmic.

I also really like Blalock's Indie Rock Playlist (http://blalocksirp.com/) - a hand-curated torrent with over a hundred songs a month. I go through it while working or exercising, flag anything that I like, and then check those bands out later. But that only works for the indie genre.

[+] abyssknight|16 years ago|reply
Pandora.com and thesixtyone are pretty much it for me. I have the Pandora One subscription, and I have that running almost 40 hours a week. If I hear something I like, I create a station for it.

Last.fm had a sweet obscurity filter that would give you crazy indie band music, which was a nice feature.

[+] navjotpawera|16 years ago|reply
+ Spotify gives me a lot of flexibility and choice (when I know what I want to listen to, or if I can spend sometime to go through the "related/alike" artists and dig some) It's replaced Itunes almost completely for me.

+ Last.fm is not built too well IMO to discover new music

+ Been trying to go back to radio. AOL stopped streaming outside the US. Yahoo still works.

+ Been trying to follow a few Music magazine/ Music label blogs which has proved to be the best way to "discover" new music. Completely automated services are too, well automated. Such as: http://www.sixdegreesrecords.com/ , http://www.juice.com.sg/music/

[+] aw3c2|16 years ago|reply
http://www.jamendo.com

Just be open minded and try a couple of albums each day. You will surely find something that appeals your ears/mind and you won't have to pay a dime.

[+] larrywright|16 years ago|reply
I discover a lot of new music from people I follow on Twitter, many of whom link to Youtube videos or Last.fm tracks. VC Fred Wilson (familiar to most here, I would imagine) is a good example of someone who tweets about what he's listening to regularly. I've discovered a number of new artists and sub-genres that way.

As far as discovering new artists in genres that I really like, you can't beat Pandora.

[+] Roridge|16 years ago|reply
Not quite what you are looking for perhaps, but I use http://blip.fm

I have found that very useful for finding new music by following (like Twitter) users who post songs I like, then then daily I get to hear new songs I haven't heard. I have got into lots of new bands that way. http://blip.fm/MCFlurry

[+] WorkerBee|16 years ago|reply
Spotify allows you to make and share playlists. I think last.fm does too. Get playlists from friends (it's like a mix tape, only hi-tech), if you like a track, click through and listen to some more of the band's output.

Listen to the radio. (I mean on the internet). My favourite for this is radio paradise. http://www.radioparadise.com/

[+] ohm|16 years ago|reply
Morning show with John Richards on Seattle station KEXP Probably the best radio station I found so far http://kexp.org/ They stream it in NY on 91.5 from 9am to 12pm

Metacritic

http://www.metacritic.com/music/

Write down high rated cd's then listen to samples of songs on Amazon to see if you like it.

[+] ndc|16 years ago|reply
It's odd that nobody has mentioned Pandora yet: http://www.pandora.com/

Put one song in, and it will give a set of songs that are similar to your song, with explanation why it thinks they are similar.

Too bad it is available only if you are browsing from US IP address.

[+] randallsquared|16 years ago|reply
I was going to mention it, but then he specifically asked for things outside his current tastes, which preclude putting something that he likes in Pandora and expecting something really different. It is true that Pandora sometimes comes out of left field with a track that's nothing like what I've been listening to, but I think they consider that a bug rather than a feature. :)
[+] matrix|16 years ago|reply
One approach that works for me: search for play lists on grooveshark.com that have songs that you like. Sometimes people put together play lists with other interesting songs on them (and sometimes they're rubbish, but such is the nature of exploration).