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Discovering New Music?

Posted by Cliff on from the seeking-a-new-sound dept.

captainclever asks: "As an avid music fan, I'm keen on discovering new artists that I will like. I have discovered a few by listening to internet radio, and writing down the names of songs that take my fancy. I had a play with The Digital Music Network, but it was very intrusive, full of adverts and only worked in Windows. I found it quite a hard topic to google for as there is so much stuff about music. Has anyone come accoss a decent system that can suggest some good artists to me based on my existing listening habbits?" Word of mouth, of course, is the tried and true method of promoting a new group. Are there weblogs that allow users to discuss music much like Slashdot discusses "news"?

6 of 561 comments (clear)

  1. I still love Groove Salad by sulli · · Score: 5, Informative

    on SomaFM. Donate as it's 100% non-profit.

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  2. Audio Galaxy by Patrick13 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Actually, before AudioGalaxy got sued into ashes, they had a great feature in their search mechanism that when you searched for an artist or title, it would show what other people who searched for that title had also search for.

    I really like the drum n bass duo Lamb and thanks to this feature at audio galaxy I was introduced to the Sneaker Pimps and Hooverphonic.

    Err, I mean I rushed right out to my local national chain music store and purchased the CDs.

    You kind of get this when you browse through Amazon.com's "other people purchased" links.

    --
    ::.. check out some Cell Phone Reviews
  3. HOLY CRAP! LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME! by TeknoDragon · · Score: 5, Informative

    I just saw this On edgey's page:

    i'll be removing my tracks from online... albeit no cost to those that download, it was a source of income for myself, and such the case, i offered my music free of charge for download to anyone that wanted. The lack of commercial (or independent) releases i've had over the years, was justified by the fact that i still maintained an income off my music, from MP3.com... a goal i think every musician wishes to achieve (unless your one of those that likes to point fingers and call someone a sell-out for wanting to be heard and monetarily successful with their craft).

    so needless to say... all my tracks will be removed from online, i can't afford the $20.00 a month to continue their premium artist service, i.e., i can't pay for people to listen to my music...

    so, get your downloads before they're gone...

    All artists on MP3.com will have to reduce their pages to a maximum of 3 tracks as of January 15th, or PAY for their once free-offered service.

    quoted from mp3.com:
    "P4P Promotion Will be Discontinued
    It's our goal to offer Premium Artists the best service for their money and tools that benefit all members. But this was getting more difficult given the enormous accounting, engineering, research and fulfillment costs that went into both the P4P promotion and regrettably, the monitoring of individuals gaming the system. We have thus decided to discontinue the P4P promotion on January 15.

    Artist Cash Program Will be Discontinued

    Accounting and engineering resource issues associated with the P4P promotion apply also to the Artist Cash program. This has made it necessary for us to discontinue one of our more convenient Artist programs. If you are currently paying for any subscriptions with Artist Cash, please go to your My Account to easily create an alternate payment method. "

  4. KCRW - Santa Monica College radio station by raresilk · · Score: 5, Informative
    This station is absolutely the best place I know of to find new, good music of almost all genres. Even if you do not live in Santa Monica, or even in California, KCRW webcasts live and archived music programming at http://www.kcrw.com/ and also on Shoutcast, and they publish complete playlists for prior broadcasts, indexed by month and day (ending that annoying "oh my god I just heard the best new track but they didn't say who it was and I had to go to work/class" freakout thing.) Also, their announcing is extremely high quality, without the usual college radio bumbling. I know this sounds like a plug, but I have no affiliation with KCRW, other than making donations to them every year - I just plain love this station as a source for new music. (In particular, check out the late night broadcasts and "Metropolis.")

    --
    No, no, no. This is not a sig.
  5. www.allmusic.com by evilty · · Score: 5, Informative

    has tons of barely heard of artists, links similar artists and groups together. good stuff.

  6. 10 Reasons you should check out CD Baby by linuxbaby · · Score: 5, Informative

    10 Reasons You Should Check Out CD Baby:

    1. We carry 30,000 CDs from independent artists that are not affiliated with the RIAA. (Meaning: you can boycott the RIAA and still buy damn good music.)
    2. We only work directly with the musicians, not distributors or labels. So we pay the artists every week. Unlike buying the majors, your money spent on CDs goes directly to the artists.
    3. We actually listened to every one of those 30,000 CDs before selling them, and can tell you which ones we highly recommend, here: http://www.cdbaby.com/picks. (It's somebody's full-time job, listening to 75 new albums a day, writing internal reviews, and linking up to other albums in the store, for the last 5 years.)
    4. We've made some fun collections (flavors) of CDs: music for Long Drives / Road Trips, CDs to Have Sex To, albums for Academics and Musicologists, ones where someone is Naked on CD Cover, and more.
    5. If you enter the name of your favorite famous artist, it'll show you the best new artists in that style. (Yes, it really works. It was built by ears not computers.)
    6. Miss walking the aisles of a record store, looking at album covers? Check out the album art gallery .
    7. You can listen to about 8 minutes of every single CD in the store, in 128k streaming MP3
    8. We're ditching RealAudio for OGG soon. (Only reason we use RealAudio is that I started this site in 1997 when that's all there was!)
    9. We never use any Microsoft products . Even the desktop computers in the office are FreeBSD running Opera.
    10. The founder & president is the programmer is a Slashdot addict is me.