Where do you find new music?

[birdonthebeach]

Simple enough - how do you find out about new music? Is it a website? A magazine? TV? XM? FM? Do you actually go into a record store (remember those?) and flip through the discs?

 

[caupina]

In my case is pretty much a little bit of everything. Most of the time I go to the stores, Tower Records, Barnes & Nobles or Amoeba Music here in LA (excellent choice especially when looking for out of prints VHS, Cds, etc) and spend hours just browsing.

 

[JoeE SP9]

Recently I have been getting introduced to new music by the Pandora project. www.pandora.com This is a service you tell what kind of music you like and it tries to play stuff it thinks you might like. It has turned me on to half a dozen new artists. I recommend it. All you music lovers should give it a try.

 

[mytzen]

I have found a lot of new music from listening to XM in my car. I didnt get XM with the intentions of finding a lot of new music but it has been an added bonus.

 

[Sheep]

Friends. Myspace.

SheepStar

 

[supervij]

I've discovered new music in a very . . . erm . . . incestuous way. I'll give you an example. As a kid, I heard Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight" on the radio and loved it. So I bought everything Phil Collins I could find. Then I remembered that he also sang lead for Genesis. So I bought everything Genesis I could find. Hey, who's that other guy singing on the older Genesis stuff? Peter Gabriel? Cool. Then got everything Gabriel. Noticed he did duets with both Laurie Anderson and Kate Bush on one of his albums, so I bought everything from those two artists. At one time Tori Amos was being compared favourably to Kate, so I tried out her first album, loved it, and collected everything from her. So that's one method.

The other is pretty much the SheepStar method: friends and MySpace. My friends know my musical tastes, and recommend stuff they think I'd like. And MySpace is a brilliant place to sample lots of stuff for free. Heck, I'm going to the Hunter Eves concert later this month based on the music she streams on her own website plus her MySpace page.

cheers,
supervij

 

[Sleestack]

Allmusic.com is a great resource.

 

[JVC]

I also use www.pandora.com

 

[johndoe]

sometimes i search on amazon for stuff i like and check out the "you might also like" recommendations. sometimes I visit these other bands' websites or forums. I pretty much stumbled onto Porcupine Tree this way

I've been using pandora since I heard about it, it looks very promising.

_________________________________________________________________

When I posted this originally I had just started using Pandora. I've found some amazing music recommendations that I had never ever heard of (also some crap, but you can just skip)

 

[birdonthebeach]

Has anyone seen PASTE magazine? You should be able to find it on the newsstand - always has a sampler CD included with over 20 songs. A great resource for new music from great artists.

 

[muncybob]

When I could get streaming audio at work I listened to wxpn radio....very good mix of music and if there was a tune I liked but didn't catch the artist I could look at the playlist in a day or two as long as I remembered the time of day. Pandora is great too! I did use Kazaa to browse other member's files to see what they have. Unlike many that get free music this way many times I did buy the cd or music from the artist.

 

[LCA]

I have used http://www.pitchforkmedia.com for several years now. They have 4 to 5 reviews daily as well as best of lists, news, interviews, and free track downloads.

I also use allmusic.com - a very comprehensive site.

 

[corysmith01]

Like above, I've gone to Pitchfork for about 5 years now, nearly everyday unless I'm away from my computer. I also frequent Indieworkshop and Tinymixtapes, also good sorces of small-label stuff.

Also, I find it really useful to just look on the sides of the CD's you own, figure out the label and then go to their site and poke around, see what other artists are on that label. Most will have mp3 samples, etc. Now, this really only works if you're dealing with smaller labels...I mean, go to Sony Records and you'll be searching through hundreds of artists. But if you like someone and they're on a label you haven't heard much about, odds are, you might like some of the other bands they've signed.

And, for a personal plug , I've started a blog that covers mostly music, but every now and again will have art, photography, books, etc. Not a review site as I don't fancy myself a critic, but just my thoughts on albums that I'm digging at the time, mostly to keep my friends in the loop:
http://mixedmediaproject.blogspot.com
I just started it about two weeks, so the posts are limited, but keep checking back–it will certainly grow.

 

[Wafflesomd]

Shoutcast stations, I listen in with winamp.

 

[BMO]

Psyshop and Amboworld .

 

[hondof1]

Traditional:
Friends
Magazines (especially CMJ, not such good luck with Paste vis a vis my tastes)
Radio (college and NPR not commercial)

New:
iTunes
Amazon
Podcasts
Musicmatch

I haven't really spent much time at myspace. The signal to noise ratio seems a bit low. I'm going to try Pandora based on the recs from this thread.

 

[markw]

I flip around the lower part of the FM dial, where the local college stations unleash all sorts of funky stuff. New, old, and stuff that fell between the cracks.

Likewise, our local B & N has it set up so you can get snippits of most any CD they have in the store. Borders has this also. This is a good thing.

 

[Rock&Roll Ninja]

I've purchased several albums based on the iTunes freebie of the week download.

 

[WorldLeader]

I subscribe to the free Indiefeed podcasts available from iTunes. They have some sweet artists like Bound Stems that I discovered from the podcast. Each program starts with a short ad and the name/artist of the song, then you get the full song, then a brief bio on the artist. A great way to find new artists.

Pandora is also awesome!

 

[skizzerflake]

Word of mouth from people with similar taste is a good start. I get interesting suggestions from allmusic.com. Featured artists in my local record store (Record and Tape Traders) and suggestions from the well informed staff help. Archive.org can be interesting too. The local college radio station (WTMD in Towson, Md) has a really broad playlist and features in-studio, unplugged performances by visting groups and performers. My best source, however, is intuition, walking around, listening, see what just sends out radiation that makes my brain vibrate. See this disk, like the look, try it out.