How to find new music: 40 ways that work

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Collections, recommendation services, communities of interest, and other ways to find what you really like.

Ratings and Top Lists

It is impossible to listen to all the good music of recent decades, but a selection of reputable publications will tell you where to start.

• Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums. The rating compiled by Rolling Stone Editors in 2012 includes the best albums, according to over 300 musicians, producers, journalists and critics.
• The best songs and albums of the decades according to Pitchfork. Here you can find a selection of 100 or 200 albums from different eras, starting from the 60s. Pitchfork subjects works to a deeper analysis, so here you can search for a long time and find unknown high-quality music of the past.
• The best albums of different years according to AllMusic. Every year AllMusic prepares one and a half dozen ratings of the best albums in different genres and one general rating that includes all important releases for the period.
• "A Thousand and One Albums to Hear" by Robert Diemery. This is an encyclopedia book describing the most important releases of the last decades. The list is presented on Discogs.
• 50 best Russian albums according to young musicians. The rating prepared by Afisha in 2010, which includes the 50 best domestic releases, according to the top musicians of the last decade.

Services

Options for those who know what to look for but don't yet know how.

• Rate Your Music. Service with tens of thousands of custom playlists. You can start with a general chart with filters, and end with very specific playlists like Asian Underground or Gnawa Music.
• Metacritic. A service that assigns two ratings to music releases, games, films and TV series: Metascore and User Score. The first is calculated based on reviews from critics, the second is based on user ratings.
• Bandcamp. Service with free access to music and a platform for the promotion of unknown musicians. On each artist's page, you can find a list of similar artists. The blog also runs on the basis of the service. Bandcamp Daily, which publishes monthly compilations of new music in different genres.
• SoundCloud. Here you can find many exclusives: demotracks, mixtapes and unique playlists. Just figure out what to score in the search, or trust the Discover tab.
• Streaming services. Most of them do not yet know how to give sensible recommendations, but this does not mean that they cannot be used to find new music. Apple Music has a tab with playlists from curators (publications, labels, other companies), and in Yandex. Music, you can find playlists from experts and musicians.
• Pandora. And this streaming service specializes in individual recommendations. Unfortunately, we have not officially presented Pandora, but if you really want to, you can use our instructions.
• YouTube. Do not underestimate the music base of YouTube: many exclusives and rare recordings exist only here. On video hosting you can find good playlists, and you can also use special services for listening to music from YouTube, for example Listen on Repeat.
• Last.fm. Once a popular social network for music lovers, keeping track of listened songs. Now almost no one uses it, but the database of similar artists has remained in place. Last.fm comes in handy if you want to get acquainted with the work of the artist, but do not know where to start. Popular songs are shown here in descending order.
• Referral services. Gnoosic, Musicroamer and Music-Map recommend music based on prevailing preferences. Just indicate your favorite artists, and the services will tell you what to listen to next.
• Musical "reminders". Album Reminder, MuzeRoom, and Swarm.fm grab artist lists from your Facebook, Spotify or Last.fm data and send email messages when one of those artists has a new release.
• Internet radio. All you have to do is find a couple of your favorite stations and borrow songs from their playlists. You can start your search from our selection.
• Podcasts. Almost all episodes of music podcasts are mixes of electronic music, but if you want, you can find something more interesting. For example, a radio station podcast with interviews and track selections.

Media

Sites that can be bookmarked in the browser.

• Pitchfork. In addition to news and selections, the publication publishes several full-fledged reviews of new releases every day. The approach to assessments is peculiar here, but something new happens almost every day.
• Consequence of Sound. A publication that grades releases by letter system (as in American schools). Of particular value are releases that appear on Consequence of Sound even earlier than on sale or on streaming services.
• "Side". A media resource that publishes concert announcements, interviews, articles about new and old Russian music, shoots videos with artists and holds festivals.
• The Needle Drop. Site with video reviews of famous YouTube critic Anthony Fantano. Especially interesting is the eclectic and thorough playlist of his favorite music, which included only 54 tracks for 2018.
• EarzOnFire. And these are video reviews from our compatriot Andrey Filippov. Particular attention is paid to the heavy scene, but there are also reviews of other popular music.
• "Poster Daily". Afisha rarely writes about music, but here you can find many exclusive interviews and copyright playlists from domestic artists.
• The Flow. The media publishes materials about hip-hop culture and Russian rap. The Albums tab contains short announcements of interesting releases of various genres.
• Concert video sites. Sometimes live performances open up an artist in a whole new way. We advise you to check out Tiny Desk's Tiny Desk gigs, BalconyTV's urban locations, and the serious musicians' gigs on the KEXP and BBC archives.
• New Music Corner. Videos in which performers listen and comment on new music.

Channels and communities

Interest clubs in the social network "VKontakte" and music channels in Telegram.

• "New Albums". The most important foreign albums in the form of VKontakte records.
• E: music. Group-aggregator of genre communities with music "VKontakte". A list of all subgroups is available in the catalog.
• Motherland and Native Sound. All actual Russian music of both more or less well-known and the most experimental bands appears here.
• « Music Teletype". An aggregator channel that collects the most interesting posts from music Telegram channels.
• Songs for Friends. A Telegram channel that daily publishes the latest music news, information about fresh tracks, videos and albums. Once a week, the author Kirill Mazhai adds playlists with new singles.
• "Albums on Fridays". This Telegram channel fully justifies its name: in it, the music journalist Pavel Borisov talks about new releases on a weekly basis.
• "New music. As short as possible. " And in this channel, the author of a sensational article about the decline of the era of Zemfira and "Mumiy Troll" Alexander Gorbachev succinctly shares his thoughts about the albums he listened to.
• "Any good pop". Bulletin of the Western and Russian pop-scene from musician and journalist Anton Vagin.
• "Cm. listens. " Notes of the music editor of "Evening Urgant" Sergei Mudrik. The author writes about old and new music, and publishes weekly lists of fresh western and domestic releases.

Other

This should be done if the methods above did not work.

• Explore your favorite artist's tributes and cover songs. Do you like the work of a popular musician? Find out who covered his songs. Most likely, there will be something similar in style.
• Find out other subscribers of the label with which your favorite artist works. Search the English-language Wikipedia for the name of the label that has recorded the music album that has sunk into your soul, and study the list of artists who collaborate with this company. Most likely, it will be possible to find a couple of dozen performers there, not very different in genre.
• Start paying attention to music in movies, TV shows, games, and even advertisements. Perhaps a well-known track will play for you in a new way.
• Visit cafes and bars. They often have good music. It will be especially useful not only to use Shazam, but also to ask employees how they create playlists.
• Go to concerts. As we said before, live performances often give artists a fresh perspective. And also concerts often begin with performances of support groups, in the music of which you can also find something interesting.