I’ve been looking for a way to discover new music. Spotify used to be quite good, but now I feel like 10% of the stuff it recommends me is AI slop.
How do you navigate the music-scape?
I only discover music through human curators I trust.
Currently it’s via the YouTube channel “worldhaspostrock”, though the word “new” might not be appropriate because as of late they’ve just been posting decade-old albums.
Bandcamp, but also get to know the artist behind the music. Maybe follow their socials and see if they have other friends that publish music.
I guess im lucky in that my taste is with older music. I had a friend whos main hobby was going to bars with bands playing and that is how bands got their start in the past. If you don’t live near a large metro you can check who is playing at various big city venues and then look around at what their music is like.
It’s much easier to find organic art in a community, outside the art industries.
Sure, unless you set up a lot of subscriptions it won’t just come on a consumption conveyor belt, and some people might want or expect that, but it’s much better to be in a place where you’re actually interacting with artists.
YT music is way better than Spotify. But some AI stuff is reccomeded .I haven’t used Spotify in probably almost a decade. I used to use Play music back in the day and got in the habit of downloading albums and uploading them I used a different service since google nuked play music and revived in as yt music.
But downloading and building your own music library you cultivate is the only way to vett music sources and ensure you aren’t listening to slop
Google play music was awesome. YT music sucks ass. I do miss Grooveshark tremendously.
Spotify isn’t owned by one of the tech monopolies. And it’s European.
Im starting to build a library of albums again, like I used to have ages ago
outside
I discover new music by listening to music themes radioshows. NPR New music Friday is pretty awesome, and there’s at least a dozen more in various public radio channels abound the world.
I can second NPR and further recommend wfmu. They have music podcasts! https://wfmu.org/podcast
Blogs and small web stuff can be pretty useful.
i stopped using spotify altogether and limit myself to yt music with adblock and sometimes look at the “discover” playlist or just let the platform autoplay songs
so far I haven’t been recommended AI slop that way
Every so often (maybe once a year) I look through my music collection and then go “Oh, I forgot about this band that I used to love” and then look them up and see if anything new from them is out. If the band has broken up I also look up the band members to see what bands they are now in or people they have worked with etc. The Six degrees of separation thing works quite well.
My main genre is hiphop I simply discover artists via recursive checking of features
Curious how you are using Spotify.
I learn about new music by playing Spotify song radio based on a song I like, and then adding the good songs I discover to a playlist.
Any standouts I listen to the whole album and research the artist.
Its not as good as when I was in high school and cross pollinating with the other music nerds bit it is ok.
At first (+10 years ago), I would just play albums friends recommended or of artists I knew I liked; Then I transitioned to playlists I found, then I let spotify mix in songs and slowly let spotify’s algorithm take up more and more of my suggestions.
After a while I noticed it getting more and more stale, recycling music I already liked and looping it.
More recently, it’s just completely off 1/2 the time, and suggesting very boring music that I suspect they commissioned and own the rights for. The playlists are all “made by Spotify” and are similar to the auto suggestions.
So I stopped using Spotify suggestions, then, as the UI got more and more bloated with stuff I don’t care for (merch, podcasts, audiobooks), I straight up switched to Qobuz for its clean UI.
But now my recommendations come from Youtube or friends.
Which is why I made this post :) (which has turned out to be a gold mine!)
Listen to the billions of songs made before 2016 lol. You got a lot of catching up to do.
New does not equal good.
Beyond that, follow trustworthy artists. The only way to fight the slop is with community and trust.
i recently discovered Tom Lehrer through some shit post. But I guess it depends on what you define as new
“New to you” music!
Record labels. For any band you like, go to their label’s website, browse the other artists on their roster or peruse the label’s past releases. The bands will likely be similar in style/sound, or at least worth checking out.
