I'm in a slump. It has been a while since I've discovered new music that I really like. And when I say "new" I mean new to me. Maybe even rediscovered would count as new.
I do not have a method. I usually stumble into new music that I like. I also don't have loads of hours to sort through tons of stuff I don't like. Plus I find that random sort of pursuit to be frustrating and unrewarding most of the time.
Amazon Music had half decent 'recommended for you' lists but I don't recall if that ever paid off. I use Qobuz now which sucks in that particular department.
I've found a few bands that I like from recommendations here at Audiogon but I have not been here much lately.
So I'm curious as to how some of you approach that search for great music that is either actually new, new to you or rediscovered.
I love the Shazam app. I can snatch any song I hear anywhere to play at home. Sometimes I'll pick a single song to play on tidal and either roon or the tidal app, IDK will just start loading similar music after my choice ends and I have history to look them up later. FM radio is still useful for new music and the college stations tend to dig a bit deeper than the corporate stations. Equipment reviews will occasionally drop a new one and very rarely shows like Axpona will play something original. I scan HiRez recordings on tidal to find stuff also.
Local HiFi shops often have music playing I scoop also.
I read as much as I can;
- biographies, interviews, articles on my favorite artists to see who their favorite artists are
- top music/pop culture outlets and writers (Pitchfork, Flavorwire, Stereogum, Consequence of Sound, Jenn Pelly, Jazz Monroe, etc.) and avoid bloated, corporate relics of the Baby Boomer Media Industrial Complex like Rolling Stone or Spin.
- pay attention. When I hear something I like, I find the fastest/easiest way to note it before I forget.
- trust people with good taste. If there are a few great music writers with what I perceive to be taste similar to mine, I pay attention to what they like. I also pay attention to the recommendations of friends/acquaintances that I perceive to have taste similar to mine.
I don’t stream. I know people attest to its efficacy in algorithmically exposing them to new stuff. I don’t doubt their sincerity. I just don’t prefer being married to an algorithm for exposure to new music. YMMV.
It’s very easy and totally free to “audition” music you are interested in hearing on YouTube (an incredible amount of global recorded music history is available for free there).
From there, I decide if I like it.
If I do, I purchase the music on either CD or vinyl, or purchase the best-sounding available file on iTunes.
OK sounds random, but give it a try. Find a very popular song that has many artists singing their own rendition, for example, "Mr, Bo jangles "then search for that song. Then listen to how each artist sings the song. I discovered Philip Browne yesterday. He is amazing. Enjoy!
I refer to AllMusic.com and check out their New Release section, primarily their “Editor’s Choice” and “Featured New Releases” picks. I have relied on AllMusic.com for years to discover new music. The site is free but I highly recommend subscribing to eliminate the annoying ads and supporting the site. Anything of interest is then added to my Amazon Music library.
"Discover Weekly" still has not popped up on my Spotify app. There are lots of other categories for looking for new music but I can't find that particular one.
My friend Jae Sinnett's jazz programming on WHRV-FM 89.5 can be streamed and he plays incredible amounts of new music every week. Sinnett In Session is live Monday through Thursday evenings from 9pm-1am, Saturday mornings from 1-5 and Sunday afternoons from 1pm-5pm.
One that has not been mentioned yet is "Pro Studio Masters". If you are on their email list you will receive 4 or 5 mailings per week of new releases and remastered music from several genres all in hi-res. Almost all of the albums have samples of all tracks that you can listen to as well as read reviews. Even if you are not interested in hi-res, you can usually find the "red book" version.
Others have already mentioned record reviews in Stereophile and Absolute Sound. I take that one step further by noting all of the music used to evaluate equipment. I have found quite a bit of new-to-me music that way.
If not already mentioned, Brilliant Classics on YouTube regularly posts attractive classical music including lesser/unknown composers eg today piano sonatas by Galuppi. They post music from Baroque through actually attractive more modern stuff.
Sure. It's a shorthand I use to describe movement somewhere on the web. This is based on using the free Bluesound app BlueOS, which I forgot to mention (sorry!). I'm betting there's Tidal or Spotify or Amazon have similar functionality.
1) It means I listen to Radio Paradise and hear a song I like.
2) I go to that song on Qobuz (one click if you have the Bluesound app)
3) I then go to the artist's page on Qobuz via their "Go to Artist" function (again, one click.)
4) Once at the artist's page, Qobuz automatically suggests other artists (one click on their "Similar Artists" feature)
So now you have a bunch of similar artists to explore in three clicks.
I will check out those links. Thanks. We need something similar here. I know there are "new for 2021 etc" threads. And there are "what are you listening to threads" but I do not recall a long running "little known artist thread." There needs to be one here.
I will start one if it isn't redundant or stepping on someone else's toes.
If anyone is into indie rock, Americana, and country, I always check out the weekly recommendations and reviews in The Nashville Scene (your local weekly alternative would work, of course), and I subscribe to weekly newsletters from Grimey's New & Preloved Records, Third Man Records, Saving Country Music, the Americana Music Association, and New Releases Now. Local Nashville musician Aaron Lee Tasjan has great recommendations in his Twitter feed as well. I find that having descriptions and recommendations from people who spend their professional lives in music, or who promote in the genres I like, have good ideas.
Please, share your links with us here as Audiogon now has a way to make it easy to share your internet station links. Just press the ’link’ above, click ok, the URL will auto populate and then type in the text you want your link to be! That's it! Why didn’t I think of this before? Thanks OP n80 for this thread!
I’m rather old-fashioned in my ways, but one of the things that introduced me to different kinds of music is my library. They have an extensive collection of CD’s to take out for free. I just go and look through the bins of CD’s and come across artists and albums I have never heard before — even some genres of music I’ve never heard. Then I play them in my car while going about my errands, and in my home while relaxing or doing chores, and find that some I like and want to hear more and others I don’t care for. This helps me expand my music choices for things like streaming.
My older friend is more Tech-savvy. He subscribes to Sirius radio and has full choice of music that streams to his new-fangled car.
+1 for Roon. I stream my old favorites and then Roon dishes out other music not in my library that follows along in the same genre. I can't tell you how many new albums and artists that I have discovered by letting Roon do its thing, and then thinking "wow, that music is good . . . who is it?" For me, with an all digital system, Roon is irreplaceable.
Thanks for the thought. I access RP via my BluOS app in rder to stream from my Node 21. Usint the RP app allows me to listen on my phone or tablet but I haven't found a way to play that on my system via wi-fi--only Bluetooth to the Node. Just now when accessing RP on the app with my phone the music appearing is from a rotation I have seen before.
If you like something, go to Discogs.com and look at the credits of that release, from there you can explore other things by that artist, producer, player, label, etc
@dsands - Any chance you are listening to an off-line cache that you downloaded? I use that feature when I fly. I download a couple of medium bitrate caches onto my mobile phone, so I can listen in off-line mode while my phone is in airplane mode.
Many references in this post to Rasio Raradise. I does offer a great means to find new music but I have an issue. Each time I "tune in" (typically to Main Menu) the same rotations of music reappear. It appears there is a limited playlist or number of playlists that are repatedly used so, at least in my experience, the opportunity for new discoveries is lost. Is there some solution I'm unaware of?
Roon is built for discovery. Definitely a good place to start. But beware, it's a rabbit hole that includes overbuilding gear and a large amount of network troubleshooting. Roon's first answer to any user problem is "it's your network." You could live in a colocation facility and they'd say that.
Used to buy random albums at Goodwill but with streaming, the 3000 or so vinyls I have are sitting fallow.
Now it's" Radio Paradise => Qobuz => "Go to Artist" => "Similar Artists" and you're off on an adventure.
BTW, when I find someone or something interesting, it gets tagged in my Qobuz "Follow Up" playlist. Radio Paradise has multiple channels so you can mood-hop as needed.
I go to the main site for the genre I'm interested in. For instance, if it's metal I go to metalstorm.com and look at the New Releases and Upcoming Releases categories. You can usually find a site like this for each genre. You could even start at newalbumreleases.net, which contains incomplete lists for all the genres.
For old releases find a site that does ratings. Each genre usually has these too. For instance, jazz has allaboutjazz.com/reviews, although it's navigation sucks. If you want to go back more than a few months in time change the page number in the URL.
Roon credit lists and Roon radio as well, plus record reviews in various publications. I have also found the various qobuz lists to be of assistance but not as much as Roon radio since I tend to already have a lot of the material Qobuz lists. BTW, I've never found Roon to have stability problems. If there's ever a problem, its with my ISP.
This is from the 1973 Weather Report album 'Sweetnighter'. I didn't even know who Dom was or had anything to do with Brazil. I just thought he was an guy from India by his percussive style and his dark Brazilian skin tone. He's the cat on the bottom left. Now this is how you share music here on Agon with others...Tchao
My thoughts exactly, as India was once part of Persia. This music is hauntingly similar. Perhaps the absence of drums, bells and chimes is an example of a single artist/masters performance of a particular instrument to be recorded for posterity or the sheer delight of the recording engineer/producer.
It used to be that way but take a look at @mahgister’spost on this thread and press play. You will see he has posted an active video link of a particular artist with added commentary. Scroll back and press play on the YouTube video @mahgister took the time to post and write about.
I don't know about jazz.
It's been right in front of you all this time and you haven't noticed it.
On this very agon site many post on Jazz for aficionados everyday a ton of music and have been doing so since 2/24/2013.
Only recently has the moderators made it possible to post active music links from YouTube.
Some of us don’t need a lot of commentary when being introduced to new music.
All I need is for someone to say, check this out, then after I’ve heard the (album) tunes then we can talk. You are mistaken if you think there is no communication between the posters there. Take a closer look.
Go on, take another look at Jazz for aficionados and click last, then go backwards and you will find so much new ’active’ content and commentary it will take you hours or even days to get through it all. And there is some serious music presented there.
Check it out, remember to click last and go backwards until you get what it is I’m talking about and let me know what you think. Now if you don't like Jazz...
Radio supplies me with lots of random artists I would otherwise not know about( I’m lucky that I live in a market with two public radio stations, a great jazz station and a great classical station).
Radio Paradise is another good source.
I also have a close friend who’s mother was a concert pianist/composer/broadway musical writer and he has been a great source of artists.
And then there is YouTube. In between my searches for DIY audio how too’s, gear reviews and news stories, there will be some random artist that shows up in my feed. Beth Hart was a recent “discovery” for me.
Sometimes, it’s just about letting the randomness of the universe express itself.
Several people have mentioned the various "what are you listening to" threads here on Audiogon. I used to frequent those threads and over the last few years I have been turned onto some artists that I remain really fond of.
However, what you mostly get in those threads is just a name of a song or an artist or an album. Nothing wrong with that. But from the perspective of looking for recommendations these threads don't offer much more than that. It would be awesome if people would include why they are listening to that song or artist, or what they like or dislike about it, what it means to them. I know that takes more work but it would certainly have more meaning than simply what another person is listening to. For whatever reason it seems very popular simply to state "I am listening to 'x' " and leave it at that.
@tyrayI live in the Charlotte, NC radio market. And much like Charlotte itself, the radio offerings are pretty cookie cutter. In fact, its a wasteland. At least in terms of rock/indie etc. I don't know about jazz. I still scan the channels in the car but you are not going to hear anything new or interesting on Charlotte radio stations unless I'm missing something after being in the area for 25 years.
One exception is WDAV out of Davidson College. It is a fantastic classical music station. I'm only marginally into classical though.
There is an oldies station south of here that is pretty good. They occasionally play stuff I've never heard from the 60s and 70s..........but there is a catch.......the reason I haven't heard most of those is because they are AWFUL. ;-)
Stereophile, The Absolute Sound, a HiFi+ all have a review section at the end of every issue. I just search Qobuz for the ones I find interesting… I only think one was not there when I tried.
Great thread OP!!! Do you listen to vinyl or CD? Well, even if you don’t, I do like Discogs for research. I like to look at granular facts about an album, like where it was recorded, record label, release data, who mastered it and so on. Discogs lets you link right to other albums, for example, that might be mastered by the same people. I highly recommend playing with the features in Discogs.
Since I’m not a streamer yet, I used to do a lot of crate digging, before covid that is. No Roon, Qobuz,Tidal, or Spotify.
But I’m also fortunate enough to live in area where 91.9 WCLK The Jazz of The City at Clark Atlanta University and a few ’underground’ college stations such as Georgia State's Album 88 keeps me tuned in.
Does anybody listen to FM radio in the car anymore? And you here something you like and you check the radio stations playlist?
You know you’re getting older when you see ’St. Paul and the Broken Bones’ and you think this is the guy St. Paul, who is a member of the group ’The Family’ one of Prince’s spin off bands...
I like certain players.Mostly bassist and drummers.When I notice one that intrests me, I look them up on Wiki.They list associated acts.I look them up and listen to them on Spotify. I've found a lot of good stuff by unknown artists doing this.A lot of European and Brazilian artists.
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