Inspired by a few recent posts on HN I wanted to make this post and share some of the ways I’ve been going about finding new music. There’s both a lot of ways to get music and ways to find new music. This is a list of some things that did/didn’t work for me.
While I have a wide range of interests, and after some lofty experimentation, I generally gravitate towards Cinematic Scores and Soundtracks, {Acid, Progressive, Italo, Future, …} House, {Pop, Skate} Punk, Hip Hop, and {Math, Alternative} Rock, so this will mainly be focused on how I found music in those areas.
The Intro
While I have had a Spotify account since 2013 I have always liked “owning” the music I listen to. I love being able to listen to whatever I want when I want but I’ve had too many instances where a song is removed after I’ve already saved it to my library (1, 2), or a German Pop Punk band isn’t available in my country because of a licensing issue.
Having the files themselves comes particularly in handy when I want to go for a run and load the music on my watch and leave the phone behind, or am out on a summer’s drive and want to listen to an old favorite when there’s no Wi-Fi (Yes there’s a “Listen Offline” mode but there is a limit and you must choose the songs to save before hand). I am always shocked when the song loads instantly when I click “play” and there’s no buffering at all.
Finding songs from others online (The Chorus)
I didn’t understand Bandcamp at first. Buying a Gogo Penguin album was my first interaction with the site but I couldn’t figure out how you could find new things without a recommendation algorithm. There’s Bandcamp Radio but the selections didn’t resonate with me. I later learned the power is in self-curation: You find an album you like, review other people’s likes and comments around that album, see what they like and follow them to find music that is “close”. My inbox pings me when a followee buys an album and I instantly have something new to try. (My bandcamp if you want to try something new)
I also read though a few music magazines and websites to see how people curate or find similar songs/artists. There was really low precision with the online periodicals, with a lot of critics who might try to review songs and albums across many genres. Not their fault, there’s just a lot of music out there.
Sorting Audiotree by genre and giving them a listen was my first source of continued success. I found most of my new favorites in the House Fire Magazine (especially in their weekly-updated Spotify playlist of new songs).
My biggest surprise came from finding out Soundcloud, a site I was last active on in 2015/2016, was still running and people still post “Free Download” songs to help build their own following. The songs have been hit or miss for me, but it has been helpful in seeing when some favorite artists are active on new projects, and finding some up-and-coming DJs to try.
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| Free downloads on Soundcloud! |
Going to shows (The Bridge)
I went to a Japanese Breakfast concert in 2021 and while I had planned to skip the opener, I’m glad I didn’t otherwise I would’ve missed one of my future all time favorite bands, Mannequin Pussy. Going to concerts puts me right in the face of artists, newer artists they might be touring with, and a new branching off point for sounds I might enjoy. Unfortunately it’s way more expensive to do this now, but even sampling local acts at bars and clubs is a fast way to find pre-mainstream talent.
Buying song files, not licenses (The Verse)
Qobuz’s download store, 7digital (US store), and Bandcamp are primarily where I shop for music. They let me buy the song files themselves rather than a license to listen to the song (which can be revoked). With Qobuz and 7digital I usually have to edit the metadata and album art of the song after the purchase, but Bandcamp usually handles that and lets me download in multiple formats. Once saved, I’ll back them up on a hard drive and load them onto my phone for future listening. I had considered putting the music on a NAS and making my music always available to me (i.e. my own cloud) but I haven’t had the chance to play with that yet. I’m also sure there are other Mac/iOS apps, besides the default apps, for playing personal media, but I haven’t investigated that yet.
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| Some of my songs on Bandcamp |
Things that I’ve tried that didn’t work super well for me (The Solo)
- Looping through Every Noise at Once helped me to see that some genres are close to others but when looking at individual bands, many have a lot of songs that span a lot of genres, or a mixture of genres, and might not belong firmly next to others in a category.
- Traversing the music map. Similar issue as above.
- Rate your music. This feels like something I’ll love but just haven’t gotten the hang of yet. Similar to Bandcamp, it gave me great recommendations based on other’s likes but sometimes it feels like the library is too scant and relies on a ton of input from a lot of people from a lot of genres. I am a huge fan of the Charts feature which lets me search by genres and specific time periods (e.g. “Top Dance songs of the 2010s with Diva House as an influence”)
The Outro
I like music. Discovery is a hard problem. You can do it so many ways quantitatively (BPM comparison, frequency analysis, graph traversal of similar listeners) but I’ve grown to like a more hand curated approach. It’s not perfect, and I still check out Spotify’s “Discover Weekly” playlist, but the feeling of finding a song I really like, that is just as good as enjoying the song itself (again and again until my headphones die).
There’s always new and different ways to find and play music, but send me an email if you have any suggestions! I’m always looking for more!
P.S. I REALLY love the “Mix” feature on Spotify. It is a fun tool to tinker with and pretend I’m Yousuke Yukimatsu playing to a large audience.
No LLM was used in writing or preparation of this post.