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Discovering New Music?
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"?
No matter what city I go to, there's usually a college radio station.
I'm actually in college, and I volunteer at one, so I'm probably a little biased, but college radio is by far the most progressive of all radio.
If you can stomach newswires being read by teenagers who barely have any grasp of proper English or public speaking skills, college radio is a great way to find stuff off the mainstream, particularly if it's a station with a good-sized audience, like WSOU from Seton Hall. For those outside the central-NJ area, they do web-cast.
Karma: Excellent, but still won't get you laid.
Hmmmm... yup yup. Yahoo groups has lots and lots of music "discussion" groups. Problem is most only want to discuss POP music divas and what Britney or Shakira wore to [insert one of thousands of POP awards shows].
They have so many genres to explore. Give it a try, and it sounds PERFECT. The record companies should be paying these guys for all the free advertising shoutcast streamers are doing. I buy so many CDs from hearing songs I like on there.
One of the granddaddies of National Public Radio, KCRW is based in Santa Monica. We used to get it using creative tuning tactics while at UCSB. Their programming like Morning Becomes Ecclectic is full of in-depth artist interviews, new music, and interesting archives.
They also used to have some great evening programs that tended to vary. It was very much like the college radio that the original poster was talking about, but KCSB wasn't quite up to the usual task of college radio when I was at UCSB. I used to listen to KSPB up in Santa Cruz. It was a progressive radio station at Robert Louis Stevenson High in Pebble Beach. That's the first time I heard the Muffs, the Cure, Smiths, NIN, Strawberry Zotz, Sisters of Mercy, Front 242 etc.
KCRW has REALLY extensive archives. The Beck shows are great. He never plays anything from an album. Also, they used to play Joe Frank. The archives still exist there. Dang cool.
TTFN
I know it has been mentioned, but it seems to me to be worth mentioning again. Amazon, in my experience has been wonderful at suggesting music to me. Granted, I usually already own what they are suggesting, but I could tell them that and they'd tell me some more.
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.
What's really sad is that this simply means the further demise of mp3.com. The site would be just awesome if they'd introduce some form of moderation.
As it is, you have some real gems mixed in with casio-keyboards-and-a-tapedeck style recordings... and it's just awful.
-Ben
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I actually have found bands by having Amazon suggest them to me. As an obsessed music fan (think a milder version of High Fidelity) I do feel I have some taste and it came as a surprise to me that by me rating a few albums that Amazon could come up with something new for me. Then, I usually check them out on Kazaa, then if I like them enough to keep the mp3s I buy the album. Being involved in mailing lists maintained by fan clubs for bands you like help as well. The people often feel a kinship with each other and will recomend things at the drop of a hat. Another suggestion is to take note of the record label some of your favorites are on. Indie labels often put out compilations to promote their less known artists that often have a similar feel to the bread winning ones.
Sites like Epitonic and Parasol have steaming audio and are not 'radio' per se. Parasol is a distributor and Epitonic is a site like MP3.com but with a more condensed selection of signed indie artists (not the myriad of DIY stuff that might be fun to wade through at MP3.com, but since you said google was dense, then this is a valid comment). Epitonic's radio stream is cool because you can listen to what they have programmed or 'walk through' genre, labels etc or create a playlist for the broadcast.
Allmusic is very good at guiding yo to stuff you might like. By checking roots, influences, followers and similar artist of an act that you like you might stumble on some new stuff.
Weblogs, forums... of course.
Then there is the old reliable. Magzines, college radio and record store clerks.
Some of my favorite mags: Magnet, Wire, Signal to Noise and CMJ.
You must have some local college stations... some of them do internet streaming if there is none near you. Local to me (Northampton, MA) there is WAMH and WMUA.
There are a few great record stores that send out new release emails of obscure titles. Also, they have employee lists. I have bought many titles without listen by looking at the employee lists. If 10 people that work in the store say it is great, then it more than likely is. Here are two great stores on each coast: Forced Exposure in Boston (click on "Employee Top 10") & Aquarius Records in San Fran (click on "Favorites" for each employee)... for both sites, sign up for the email updates for weekly new releases.
If anyone is into Free Jazz, check out my site.
pronoblem
He certainly can, as he owns a hosting company. However, the point here is that he now HAS to stop giving out music for free because he can't pay in order to do so. The point here being that an artist as popular as EDGEY _could_ exclusively sell CD's but had chosen to give the music away for free...until now.
This is still how I find CDs to buy. (Net radio is rather difficult when you can only get 28.8 where you live.)
Finding new music is like stepping stones; you go from one to the next to the next. So when you find music you like, you look at similar music.
Fundamentally, you will need to sample bands and be disappointed a lot. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.
There are good artists that aren't known worldwide, but are popular in their countries. Look at country-specific Tops (but beware :), newsgroups related to music, IRC, etc. So, the ways to know about good music aren't different, but the places are.
/ /zemfira.ru/music/mp3/50.mp3
For one, Japan is absolutely worth looking at, I especially like soundtracks, they are usually a lot better than, well, non-soundtracks. Laputa, Nausicaa, Mononoke Hime OSTs are very good.
For two, take a look at these (poor quality, for review only, etc.):
http://zemfira.ru/music/mp3/56.mp3
http: