where to find new music
If you're getting into music, or at a point where you've figured out your likes and want more, you may begin to butt against a big question. That band you love you still love like the first day you found it, but more and more you are finding how unique that band truly is by virtue of how hard it is to find anything like it. Automated suggestions aren't hitting the itch, mutual fans of your favourites suggest bands you already know, or you're dipping your toes into a new genre and can't figure out which acts here will suit your preferences.
You're not that deep of a miner. You know there has to be more — but where is it?
So the question you're facing is, where do I find new music?
Glad you asked! This page is an overview of the ways I've found to look for new, and sometimes specifically obscure, music, that hopefully will work to serve you.
First a quick digression. My interest in hunting bands started as a general thing, from desire to know what things like 'midwest emo', 'dungeon synth', 'antifolk', 'shibuya kei', 'no wave', 'industrial', 'zeuhl', and so on actually meant — genre tourism — that ultimately, knowing the alternatives, reinforced my taste as rather pleb. Then, knowing I was a pleb, I focused more on my preferred genres and became more able to discern which acts were good, which were trite, which were original, and which were cliched. The gems of the genre really were gems. I became desperate to find more of them, though that meant shuffling through stacks of bands nobody bothered with.
What's the mark of a good band that's been overlooked? Generally, it's one that just hasn't had much press (in English), or it's a project from someone who worked/s with an established act that is overshadowing them. You can still find totally obscure stuff that is good, but generally people do have an ear for promoting quality once they find it, and acts that persist long enough to have collabs do so because the people in those bands are career musicians, with a family history of music or formal education. Which isn't to say such things are necessary to be a good musician, but they do help, especially when starting off.
But enough of that, let's get to the methods.
Final tip: want to browse RYM without seeing everybody's hot takes? Scroll down on any artist or album page to the 'Customize release page' button, and uncheck 'Show reviews section' and 'Show comments section'. Ta-dah! Silence.
You're not that deep of a miner. You know there has to be more — but where is it?
So the question you're facing is, where do I find new music?
Glad you asked! This page is an overview of the ways I've found to look for new, and sometimes specifically obscure, music, that hopefully will work to serve you.
First a quick digression. My interest in hunting bands started as a general thing, from desire to know what things like 'midwest emo', 'dungeon synth', 'antifolk', 'shibuya kei', 'no wave', 'industrial', 'zeuhl', and so on actually meant — genre tourism — that ultimately, knowing the alternatives, reinforced my taste as rather pleb. Then, knowing I was a pleb, I focused more on my preferred genres and became more able to discern which acts were good, which were trite, which were original, and which were cliched. The gems of the genre really were gems. I became desperate to find more of them, though that meant shuffling through stacks of bands nobody bothered with.
What's the mark of a good band that's been overlooked? Generally, it's one that just hasn't had much press (in English), or it's a project from someone who worked/s with an established act that is overshadowing them. You can still find totally obscure stuff that is good, but generally people do have an ear for promoting quality once they find it, and acts that persist long enough to have collabs do so because the people in those bands are career musicians, with a family history of music or formal education. Which isn't to say such things are necessary to be a good musician, but they do help, especially when starting off.
But enough of that, let's get to the methods.
- Attend Gigs: Go outside, touch some grass, and see what bands are playing in your neighbourhood. What you get will vary depending on where you live, but fundamentally the best way to find music is to go outside.
- Music Stores and Thrift Shops: Similar to the above. Zero assurance of quality but that can be the fun of it.
- Algorithmic recommendation tools: Gnoosic, Spotify, Youtube. Look up an album by an artist you like and scud around in the related artists. Gnoosic is good for getting really obscure stuff (though it's often a bit off the mark), Spotify is good for decent-quality artists but gets stuck in related artist loops, Youtube is good for a total grab bag but doesn't have much quality control.
- RYM Genre Charts: Rateyourmusic has a questionable userbase but a powerful database; by all means take advantage of it. Use the esoteric filter if you want to screen out the 'pleb hype' (some music reviewer liked it so it's in vogue to listen to (I am of the general assumption that big music reviewers are bribed by the music industry)).
You can also use RYM genre charts to scour every release in a genre in a year, which is less arduous than it sounds if the genre is niche, but this won't catch releases that are untagged. - Associated Acts of Established Artists: Go to the RYM page of an artist you like and check the 'related artists' section, as well as the pages of the individual band members. You can get lost for hours in chains of this.
- RYM User-made Lists: Go to an artist or album you like on RYM and see if it's on any recommendation lists. This won't work for popular artists because the lists will be flooded with listening journals, but works great for more niche stuff.
Further, if you find a user who seems to have similar taste to you, check their album ratings for their favourites. - /mu/ Archives: search "BAND NAME" or "rec "BAND NAME"" into the /mu/ archives to return all posts containing that string. You will probably run into inflammatory posts, because it's 4chan, but you'll also run into people who know a lot of really weird bands and give good recommendations.
- /mu/ Sharethreads: search "Sharethread" into the title field of the /mu/ archives to return threads where users post albums they think are worth sharing. This is a complete grab-bag but you can find good things in these, particularly in older ones. Another good string is "personal 10/10".
- Your Favourite Artist's Favourite Artists: Good artists are generally open about what bands inspire or inspired them, so you can trawl around for interviews where musicians you like divulge their own favourites, but this can be hard to find so it's down here.
- Dedicated Music Blogs: search "site:blogspot.com "BAND"", "site:wordpress.com "BAND"", or "site:tumblr.com "BAND"" into google to return pages on the respective sites containing that string. There is a surprisingly large circle of music blogs still around dedicated to weird genres that keep tabs on new realeases.
- Dedicated Youtube Music Channels: Youtube is full of channels dedicated to posting albums from the channel owner's favourite genres. You can find decent things in these but you can also get flooded with niche stuff that doesn't click. They can also be tricky to find in the first place.
- Same Record Label: Check what bands are signed to the same record label as one you like. In my experience, any one label only has 2-3 bands worth much consideration, but if you only know 1 of those bands, that's 2 more sitting around you haven't checked out.
Final tip: want to browse RYM without seeing everybody's hot takes? Scroll down on any artist or album page to the 'Customize release page' button, and uncheck 'Show reviews section' and 'Show comments section'. Ta-dah! Silence.