How do you discover music?

Since it's not mentioned by any other comment: Bandcamp - https://bandcamp.com/

I follow a bunch of artists and labels there, and get notifications when new stuff get published by them. If I find a new artist, I usually look them up on Bandcamp, and follow the label too, looking through whatever other stuff they published.

If I find a really small artist on Bandcamp, I usually look through which Bandcamp users have supported the artist, and look through what else they follow/collected, been finding some gems this way too, but takes a bit more effort.

Bandcamp also has something called "Bandcamp Fridays" (https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/bandcamp-fridays-update) where more of what you pay go to the artists. I usually save up what I want to buy until next Bandcamp Friday and then go on a shopping spree based on my list.

I discover music through Spotify.

You could say "Spotify's algorithm", but you need to help it. It is more their links between artists that I use, and the general availability of a lot of artists. (Not as many as on YouTube.)

If I have found a lot of great, new music this week, next week's "Discover Weekly" and the albums recommended in "Home" are better.

Most of the music I find is by looking at the tracks I'm already playing: Maybe I only heard one song from an artist, maybe I only ever listened to their old stuff, or maybe I only ever listened to their new stuff. Maybe it's a remix, and the featured artist is the one I like, so I listen to their top songs.

I've learned that whatever one-hit wonder people have -- the song that everyone plays 10 times more often than their second-most popular song -- is often a good choice if you're assessing a musician. But if you like them, it's also likely that your favorite song isn't everyone else's.

I mostly listen to electronic music without vocals, so I can play a lot of random music while I work, and occasionally something sticks out in a good or a bad way.

Last year I spent 65000 minutes listening to music on Spotify.

I've been involved in punk/hardcore community for decades now and I've got my sources : friends, blogs, forums, last fm follows... For anything else I listen to the radio, especially fip.fr who expose me to Music I wouldn't think I could love. Also, i mainly listen to albums, never playlists, automated or curated ones. I don't believe in recommendation algos and don't feel the need to get into that way of discovering music and leave that passion to a company. I always loved to dig into stores crates or read reviews and I fear the infinite of choice from streaming platforms or being stuck in a bubble. There's like something "unpure" and Betrayal to how I used to love music in Spotify recommandations and the way it pushes always something new. It may sounds puerile or posh but that's just how I feel, i'm very oldschool and conservative regarding this topic.

Recommendation algorithms are mostly garbage, I find most of it through RYM by browsing the charts / clicking on people's profiles and seeing their highly rated albums. Human curated > machine curated still.

There's a website called Every Noise At Once [0] which contains a list of almost every genre of music in the world. Each genre has a linked Spotify playlist with a few hundred songs of the given genre. And once I'm in that genre, I mostly just let Spotify algorithms do their thing to get me new stuff.

[0] https://everynoise.com/

I make multiple Spotify playlists, each dedicated to a particular type of music I like (country, electronica, folk, house, etc).

Spotify Discover seems to work pretty well for me.

Yesterday it surfaced an outrun track featuring both guitar and sax solos, which... is pretty on-brand for ethbr0.

Having diverse and varied playlists seems to help? I've had friends complain it doesn't work for them, so I must do something different.

(Doom Flamingo - Domingo's Drive, if anyone's curious https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uH0IUJtUBek )

I took a language class with a large number of immigrants. Over the course of the semester, I'd ask each student about their favorite music from their home country. It's been fantastic. I've learned about whole genres of music, and expanded my listening horizons considerably.

One good tool that replicates this process a bit is https://radiooooo.com where you can listen to typical playlists from countries and even from a chosen decade (more or less).

I use Wikipedia to check out all albums that are being released.

I listen to metal, so I'm frequently visiting this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_in_heavy_metal_music

I used to use last.fm quite a bit. I haven't checked in a long time, but there was a great "similar artists" section on each artist page. It made finding new tunes really easy.

Other than that, I try to keep up with what my friends are listening to.

I'm a fan of https://everynoise.com/

> Every Noise at Once is an ongoing attempt at an algorithmically-generated, readability-adjusted scatter-plot of the musical genre-space, based on data tracked and analyzed for 5,957 genre-shaped distinctions by Spotify as of 2022-09-12. The calibration is fuzzy, but in general down is more organic, up is more mechanical and electric; left is denser and more atmospheric, right is spikier and bouncier.

I tend to visit this site after discovering a new artist I really like to find other adjacent artists and genres.

KCRW FM Los Angeles. YouTube DJ sets at Laundry Room, HÖR BERLIN, Seoul Community Radio and other virtual venues.

There's a whole genre of YouTube videos of disembodied hands playing electronic music, titled with the names of the instruments featured in the videos. If you have, say, an Elektron Octatrack, a Roland SH01A, and a Korg Volca Modular, drop those terms in a YouTube search. The quality is very uneven: most of the videos are just people screwing around, but you occasionally come across somebody with an album on Bandcamp, and the recommendations lead to interesting discoveries.

Discogs is the ULTIMATE way to discover new gems, from old times as recent stuff. Discogs is more than a platform for buying records. It is the BIGGEST database for music. You have many search tools and you can easily find music by year, style, genre, label, artist, area, combine everything. You have the "Hot", "Most Wanted", "Recent" algorithms that allows you to adapt the kind of stuff you want in your result (If you need to check your classics, go for "Most Collected"). It's really powerfull. It's not the best for listening music on it (lot of links for youtube videos are broken), but from Discogs you can then type the artist on Youtube, Bandcamp or Soundcloud. You can make your own lists and check other peoples lists, going from one track and see familiar music by seeing numerous selections containing this song made by other users. I've been a DJ since 10 years and I tried a lot of platforms and Discogs is the one I'm using the most.

An other way to discover music is to talk with people from your surroundings that you like the music taste and propose to exchange some music. Make some selections of tracks and send them files transfers, sometimes people will be kind and send you back some music they really enjoy.

And we can just simply start discovering new stuff from the songs we already have by checking the other projects of the artists, the labels that released the songs and have hours to spend exploring music that will really fit our tastes.

Blogs and websites that post curated lists of new releases for the genres I like.

The way I find those sites is by searching for an album I know I liked and seeing which sites have posted about it - release dates, reviews, etc. Works the best when you can find sites with a more specific genre though, to cut out some of the extra noise.

Then I just check back in to see what is getting released when, and look it up on whatever streaming service.

Subreddits work occasionally, but it seems like more often than not those are used to post old albums and old songs for free upvotes.

I use Spotify. Mainly Discover Weekly and playlists, both those that are created by Spotify as ones that are created by others.

I listen to Discover Weekly every week (I think I've missed 1 week in several years). Every time I like a song, want to hear the rest of the album it's on or want to hear more of that artist, I add that song to a big playlist (currently 906 songs) so I can open that artist's page later. On that artist page I often check out the 'appears on' section to check out albums or playlists with similar music. I treat that album/playlist the same as Discover weekly: If I like a song I add it to the big playlist.

I think this works great, I often discover new artists or songs, all more or less in the same (electronicy) genres though. I've also noticed that I can listen to some albums that are different, but it won't get added to my Discover Weekly, which is exactly how I like it. For example: sometimes I like to listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers for an afternoon, but I don't feel the need to have similar artists added to my mix of songs.

I don't really use the Daily mixes. Every one of those seems to have the same couple of artist and the mix of artists doen't really changes over time.

And sometimes a friend of mine or some family members send me a link to an album or playlist they like.

Surprised/not-surprised that no-one has mentioned TikTok. My feed regularly exposes me to artists and styles (e.g. jazz fusion) I haven't heard at all or enough.

Mostly via online record stores

Discogs (Genre) Sort by "Hot"

https://www.discogs.com/search/?sort=hot%2Cdesc&style_exact=...

https://www.phonicarecords.com

https://www.junodownload.com/leftfield/

https://hardwax.com Great weekly recap mixes featuring their latest releases on Youtube https://www.youtube.com/c/hardwax_official/videos

Bandcamp search by tag/genre. Discover tracks I like, then click through to see what other tracks supporters have recently purchased - honestly found some of the best music via this method.

I also run a monthly mix series called Dystopian Disco - that's predominately focused on unearthing new house/techno/dark disco releases.

https://www.youtube.com/c/DystopianDisco

WFMU https://wfmu.org

It's like college radio from the 80s, but with the cartoony enhanced powers granted by gamma rays in a horrible accident in New Jersey. Every DJ does their own thing. Station manager Ken claims there's always at least one show on the schedule that anyone can hate, even if they hate different shows.

As a didgeridoo artist (quite niche) playing "organic trance", I rely on others publishing on "my" platform (YT; in case you're interested, channel name's "Wergiftfresch"; meta-observation for yoshua921: HN-users discover everything via HN) to use similar tags as I do and naturally YT will steer me close to them. Note that my niche is so small that I can mostly map the space and the new ones I find are even more niche.

As bandcamp user, the "others who bought this also checked out that" might be helpful, but I seldomly follow them.

As a music consumer (niche metal) I follow the set of bands and naturally uncover close relatives by supporting acts on live shows etc.

Given my time is very limited, I don't feel a big need to discover even more music. Most of my time already is taken by me practicing, recording, mixing and keeping up with publishing next to $DAYJOB and $FAMILY.

In hopes of regaining a more pure, attentive listening experience, I've steered clear of using the well-known streaming services. As such, despite obvious discovery limitations, erring towards contemporary music: Bandcamp Daily and Bandcamp's New and Notable sections. Also, I find music by way of a respective album's footer suggestions, e.g., recently, I was listening to Floating Points's Promises album[1] and the footer pointed me to Nala Sinephro's Space 1.8 album[2] - a rather neat find.

1. https://floatingpoints.bandcamp.com/album/promises 2. https://nalasinephro.bandcamp.com/album/space-18

I frantically smash the Shazam button over and over again while I loop a certain part in a live DJ set on SoundCloud. When the DJ is overlaying 2 tracks at a faster bpm, adding their own basslines and AFX, Shazam rarely works. But when it does it's like finding a diamond in the rough. Then I listen to the EP it's on A and B sides, listen to other EPs from the DJ and listen to other releases on that label. Combination of SoundCloud, discogs, mixesdb.com, bandcamp and YouTube.

Lots of times the first comment will be a partial track list or I'll look up the tracklisting on mixesdb.

In the 90s to discover music it was you had to attend shows and crate dig or even call up the record label (long distance number!) and listen to the latest release over POTS.

For a long time Soulseek (p2p platform similar to early napster) by bulk-downloading artists releases which released on labels labels i know. Then look for other artists on the label, or another label an artist releases on and repeat the process.

This turns out this was very effective to not stay in a style or comfort zone bubble. Nowadays I collect vinyl and find new stuff via bargain bin deals and on flea markets. That said, this approaches are probably better suited for people who are not fixated on particular styles.

Discogs.com is a great resource to look around and find new stuff on label level. I'm not affilatednwith them, but use their service for over a decade for the database, and more recently to buy some vinyl I couldn't find locally.

As answered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32840864

Usually it's one of these: - Spotify's "Discover Weekly" playlist.

- Spotify's "Enhance Playlist" feature applied to my playlists (including the "Liked Songs" playlist).

- Friends (lots of them love music, some of them are musicians).

- Live DJ Sets on YT.

- Music compilation videos on YT.

- Artists I follow on Instagram. Some make music in niche genres and started their movements, which onboard new interesting artists from time to time. I found several cool emerging artists this way, to answer your question.

We are working on a curated library of independent electronic music called Formaviva (https://formaviva.com).

The library contains ambient, deep, meditative, techno, rhythmic and dub music that we find productive for passive listening, meditation and productivity.

You can find lots of underrated and undiscovered secret talents and music not available on Spotify and other platforms.

The traditional music recommendations algorithms are very limited for deep music discovery as they extensively depend on music history where the best high-quality independent music often times unnoticed by those algorithms where creators have different motivation for music production.

For dance music, as a DJ, I find the best way is to find an artist through their song being played in a set I listen to, then check that artist's label for more. I can then buy / follow on Bandcamp to be alerted of new releases. I hear alot of talk about labels becoming obsolete nowadays, but they're great for this use case.

For ambient music, I also make a site (https://flowful.app) which procedurally generates ambient music for you. I have a Discord of people who use it, where theres a section for people to share music. Most of the new ambient stuff I find now is through there.

Exploring the neighborhood around what I like usually works. This means: see what's released on the same music labels. See which journalists and bloggers wrote about the thing i liked. See what artists the original artist considers to be their peers, or inspiration. And reiterate once you find something nice. For random/distant discovery there are radio shows, can seach tracklists on (e.g.) NTS to see which shows play things up my alley. I really don't like the soundcloud UX but for me their recommendation algorithm is quite good, often recommending very obscure but good, and more importantly, relevant things.

https://www.ohmyrockness.com/ is fantastic, I think because it's personally curated by boots on the ground music fans who make a living researching up and coming New York bands. It has a focus on the NYC scene, but features bios and reviews from bands from all over the world.

I like it because I know the recommendations never come from algorithms, but come organically from other music fans. Rock's the overarching thematic focus, but you'll find hip-hop, jazz, and nearly any genre you could think of on there :)

1) youtube recommendations (I provided enough data for them to be good)

2) contextual discovery - e.g. I like some band and than I discover the previous band of their drummer

3) recommendations from friends, internet radio DJs etc

4) accidentally visiting band's concert

Primarily I stream from Pandora, Spotify and Soundcloud through Sonos. Then I have Sonos scrobble everything to Last.fm.

I still find Pandora to be the best for finding new artists, I just create new stations and see what they recommend.

I listen to DJ sets on Soundcloud, then I'll try to Shazam any tracks I like (50% chance in my type of music, underground electronic) or ask in the comments for "ID Please?". Then I usually add it to my YouTube playlist [0] (Premium, of course), which gives recommendations, and I try to buy the record on Discogs if available on vinyl, which also has a recommendation engine.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS9h1UWf2LH5VIR-lqJoM...

Internet radio!

Mostly https://doyou.world/ and https://www.nts.live/

Movie soundtracks. I search for the best on Google/YouTube.

"Pretty in Pink, by the way, also has the best soundtrack of any movie I’ve ever seen, with many of the songs specifically written or re-recorded for the film. It is one of the most acclaimed musical compilations in modern cinema, and in 2013 was ranked #11 in Rolling Stone’s list of greatest soundtracks."

From: https://moviewise.substack.com/p/a-love-letter-to-pretty-in-...

I grew up in the 70s-90s, so I like to listen to CDs from that time period.

What's cool is all the 'new' music on them, which are simply B-sides from my favorite groups or unheard tracks from the albums.

Great discussion, thank you for bringing this up!

I used to find a lot of interesting new music on Facebook, but I've given up on the platform a few years ago, which now actually leaves quite a gap in my ability to discover new music.

Lately, I'm following nodata.tv and exystence.net in my RSS reader, which is somewhat hit and miss, but connects me with a lot of very eclectic stuff. Also, I find the Bandcamp recommendation algorithm at least acceptable, so I discover some new stuff there. And then there's the DJs and producers I follow on Soundcloud.

Today some tradies were putting up scaffolding next door to me while I was working at home. They were playing this amazing reggae tune, followed by a playlist of similarly great stuff I’d never heard before. At lunch I went for a walk, and on my way out I went over to ask who put together the playlist. Turns out it was Youtube Music based off the first reggae track. So I figure if you can find that first entrypoint song, that’s different enough from what you usually listen to, the algorithms can take you on quite a journey.

Sadly, I use YouTube Music, payment for which also includes YouTube Premium. I've been wanting to find an alternative, but too many creators I enjoy following are only present on YouTube.

In my experience I can tell that music is discovering me. I don't look for music actively. Sometimes I stumble upon new music I like on YouTube or I hear a song on the radio in a cafe.

95% from music playlists I follow on Spotify. Check "Discovered on" section on your favourite artist page, look for playlists that seem to align with your taste. Avoid official Spotify playlists and look for ones created by actual people.

Also "Right Now" playlist from Ryan Schreiber (Pitchfork's founder) if you're into that style. Try looking for playlists created by music journalists you enjoy.

Algorithmic recommendations never worked for me.

A lot of time it's from what my friends are talking/linking on social media. But I also use Bandcamp now and then as well as Wikipedia (seriously). The latter might not sound like a music discovery engine but if you look up a band/artist you like there are often references to their influences, bands members were in prior, and similar bands or bands in the same genre.

I search for "Full album" on Youtube, and filter by date/time etc, add a few terms like "bandcamp", and sort by upload date to get some interesting results.

Sample: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Full+Album+band...

I listen to Maed in India podcast [1] and also subscribed to Telegram channel called Chuck & Berty's Song A Day [2]

[1] https://open.spotify.com/show/0QhzjA2zKdKgIQsd2ltHtp

[2] https://t.me/chuckberty

Bandcamp's Daily blog and the Weekly radio shows (the Tuesday "general", Fridays alternate metal and hip hop)

No Clean Singing, Angry Metal Guy, r/IndieHeads, NTS Radio, Ghettoblaster, OffShelf

My parter and I also hit up local record stores often and often make them a destination when traveling somewhere new so we get lot of new stuff and listen to them over time.

Before Google Play Music was shut down in favor of YouTube Music, they had a feature called “Playing Near You”. I discovered so many fantastic, relatively unknown/new artists that became my favorites. I also went to many more live shows because of it. Was the golden age of music for me.

Still waiting on YTM to migrate the feature.

I find most new music through NPR’s Tiny Desk series. I discovered IDLES a few months ago, and they’re really all I’ve listen to since. Music is a huge part of my life whether it be writing or playing or listening and I’m struggling to think of another band that has had such a powerful effect on me as IDLES.

Twitter accounts of musicians and music magazines, Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Mixcloud, word of mouth, Shazam for random things I hear, serendipitous finds whem bin diving at new or used record shops, international internet radio and sometimes good old fm radio... never spotify

I have used Hype Machine for years:

https://www.hypem.com

I listening only classical music here is some search I do.

- Filter with compositor, rachmaninoff, mozart...

- I filter with record label in spotify, with very specific and quality like "hamonia mundi", "erato" and others.

- Select orchestra (London Symphony Orchestra, Choir of King's College)

- Select musician (Baremboim, Argerich...)

NPR Music and Pitchfork for mainstream stuff, Reddit and Facebook groups for metal and The Wire magazine for weirder things.

It's honestly amazing to read a review about an album of viola and cello free jazz and to be able to listen to it on Spotify and Bandcamp in 30 seconds.

Music Map is an excellent resource for new artists. Its part of Gnod. I found it from an old HN post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11827808

Probably 95% of my listening is of DJ sets.

I find new DJs through the BBC Radio 1 Essential Mix, DJ Mag awards, Resident Advisor polls (but I think these have mostly been discontinued), festival or concert lineups, and radio stations hosting on SoundCloud.

These days I use a private music sharing site. I browse the Top 10 every few days, grab things that look interesting, and listen. I am constantly discovering new artists and new favorite albums.

I used Spotify for years and found the discovery not very good.

Spotify discovery but discovering and rediscovering most music these days from tv series.

It used to be: watch something new in a cinema or on TV or play a new video game; hear good music; find soundtrack (one way or another). But I neither watch nor play new things so I am not expanding my music library.

From time to time I have fun with https://www.gnoosic.com/

So far I have found incredible bands that I would not even imagine finding otherwise.

Spotifys algorithm doesn't do anything. YouTube is a tiny bit better. But it's very difficult. You need to click around to get out of the algorithm that shows the same thing for six months.

Visit a record store. Usually the employees/owners will tag their favorites and you can see who’s taste aligns with yours.

You can also tell someone what you like and they’ll have good recommendations.

I'm currently trying to use Spotify's radio feature, but it seems to just play me the same 15 or so songs over and over. Even if I skip particular songs, they keep coming back.

BBC Essential Mix + Essential Mix Classic. Fortunately the BBC Sounds app is not geoblocked like iPlayer so don't even have to look for alternative methods to listen them.

I miss the times when I spent hours pouring through the endless content of https://www.allmusic.com

College radio. Look up some famous college stations. They all stream and are awesomely curated. My choice is WFUV in New York, but there are many great ones.

- Constant usage of the "create radio based on X" feature of Spotify

- Searching songs by their producer

- Spend a lot of time researching music and genres

- Music subreddits

- Looking up songs sampled by other songs

lastfm recommendations, rateyourmusic, and friends :-)

Haven't really discovered new music since Rdio. Mostly just going back to old albums and bands given most recommendations are really bad.

KEXP seattle, wa

https://www.newsounds.org/

One thing I don’t see mentioned yet: I look into the labels of artists I like and see who else they’ve signed.

Previously: Collages / Top 10 / IRC on What.cd

Now: Listening to what Apple Music puts in front of me. I got lazy.

Word of mouth, Spotify algo, Pitchfork Media, Turntable Lab, Metacritic, NME, WXPN (local college radio)

For underground & rare music: YouTube playlists, SoulSeek, VK.com and Blogspot.

I look through my record collection for stuff I bought decades ago and forgot about.

i've really struggled with this for a few years now - spotify's algorithm has bubbled me and just recommends the same half a dozen albums and artists no matter what I listen to. NTS radio has been fantastic though.

I read music magazines for album reviews, and most feature a “new artist” section.

Typically I will use Spotify's radio feature to get recommendations.

internet radio, some of them even publish playlists. testfm, nts, dy10 (souncloud), from that point you can ask for track ids or browse recordings, look for artists' likes and so on

KEXP and BBC Radio 6

youtube music radios, I've long given up spotify for their shitty app and turns out youtube gives better recommendations for my music tastes

Via my children.

95% "Discover Weekly" by Spotify

Internet radio stations on the dark web.

I write it.

https://rateyourmusic.com/ - The most user-driven and comprehensive music database I've come across (except maybe discogs). The site is great for choosing what material to start with if you are exploring a new artist. It is also a treasure trove of charts and all-around music data to explore.

https://www.last.fm/ - Yes, this site still exists and still has somewhat of a community. It is my secondary driver for finding new music these days. I look at what the folks I follow are listening to and use tags to find new artists with commonalities. Been scrobbling on and off for about 15 years. Would have never found a proper Soul Coughing analog if not for this service (MC 900 Ft. Jesus).

While it’s probably taboo to recommend a 4chan board - /mu/ can have excellent content if you look hard enough for it (last.fm , /prod/, /chart/ threads).

Here is a dump of blogs I've checked out for inspiration: http://1000flights.blogspot.com/ | https://nostalgie-de-la-boue.blogspot.com | https://monrakplengthai.blogspot.com/ | https://phyuniwarpyarmusic.blogspot.com | https://neosamzpoke.blogspot.com/ | https://bodegapop.blogspot.com/ | https://foundtapes.blogspot.com/ | https://disorderareyouexperienced.blogspot.com/ | https://norecordshopsleft.blogspot.com/ | http://tapeattack.blogspot.com/ |https://dieordiy2.blogspot.com/ | https://oriental-traditional-music.blogspot.com/ | http://soi48.blogspot.com/ | http://madrotter-treasure-hunt.blogspot.com/ | http://public-embarrassment-blues.blogspot.com/ | https://moroccantapestash.blogspot.com | https://oriental-traditional-music.blogspot.com/

Formaviva.com

Youtube Music