
Ask HN: Discovering new music? - superted
How do you go about discovering new music? I find it easy to listen to the same old favourites, and would love a music-equivalent to hacker news. A lot of services, like last.fm and spotify, recommend music based on my listening habits, which definitely is an excellent functionality. I would, however, love to be fed recommendations somewhat uncorrelated to my current taste, in order to broaden my views. Any suggestions where to look?
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1331
South by Southwest (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_by_Southwest>) is an
Austin, Texas music festival which showcases bands that play a wide range of
music. Artist bios and MP3s are put on the website (<http://sxsw.com/music>),
and there are also unofficial torrents
(<http://sites.google.com/site/sxswtorrent/2010>) for convenience. With
gigabytes of publicly-available music, there is a lot to discover!

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recurser
I don't mean to promote piracy or derail the discussion, but if you're a
what.cd member you can usually find interesting new stuff by watching the
daily and weekly top 10 lists. Also, searching by tag for your favourite
genres and sorting by seeders often reveals stuff you may have missed in the
past.

~~~
smanek
Stupid question - but how does one go about becoming a what.cd member?

~~~
rms
[http://whatinterviewprep.webs.com/preparefortheinterview.htm...](http://whatinterviewprep.webs.com/preparefortheinterview.html)

Totally worth it

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ZeroGravitas
You ask for "new music" but in the longer question you seem to be asking for
music that is new to you, two very different things.

I'm more interested in finding good music, than new (produced in the last X
years) music, in fact I probably have a distinct preference for older music so
with that in mind here's some techniques I use.

Last.fm has "similar to artist X" radio but I think it's actually "people who
listen to Artist X also listen to" radio which I find gives good results as
long as you don't choose highly popular artists (or those that are listened to
by boring people) as that seems to average things out to the point that I've
already heard the music and nothing surprises me. For my tastes I found "music
that is listened to by people who listen to Eels" was interesting. It also
worked with "Sly and the Family Stone". What I peronally like about this is
that it's a mix of stuff I know and like with new and interesting music so the
new stuff gets a chance to creep up on me.

BBC Radio 6 Music is basically a bunch of musos playing good tunes. So good in
fact that they're alledgedly going to kill it soon in some big reshuffle,
enjoy it while it lasts.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/>

Since they log every track they play on last.fm you can also listen to BBC
Radio 6 style music on Last.fm here:

<http://www.last.fm/listen/user/bbc6music/personal>

My own personal fave tactic is to research my favourite bands and listen to
the music they liked (including who they cover, namecheck, sample, work with
etc.). This rarely lets me down. It also helps to have a circle of friends
doing likewise as it can be time intensive.

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rosejn
Tryout <http://kgnu.org> if you want to expand your horizons. They have a live
stream and a back catalog from the last two weeks of shows. It's a non-profit
station in Boulder, Co, and they get hundreds of new CDs a month representing
every kind of international music and out-there genre you could imagine. Jazz
and beyond, musica mundi, jam sandwich, reggae blood-lines, old-grass/new-
grass, and african roots are some of my favorites. The morning and afternoon
sound alternatives vary a lot, but once you find DJs you like you can track
them. You won't find any top 40 or pop, but you wouldn't have asked this
question if that's what you wanted.

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MikeW
<http://hypem.com> is probably my favourite simply because I've learned of so
much music I've bought because of that site. I especially love the remixes and
mashups.

<https://old.thesixtyone.com> is also a pretty good site for finding
interesting music.

~~~
seertaak
Shameless plug: if you do head to thesixtyone, please do check out my music!
<http://old.thesixtyone.com/#/martindifeo/>

Also at www.myspace.com/martindifeo

Thanks!

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jrnkntl
I like to listen to 22tracks. These are lists in different kinds of genres
with selected songs by a number of DJs in Amsterdam. I discover new music this
way everyday in genres I'd normally never listen to. <http://www.22tracks.com>

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jriddycuz
Read about the development and individuals involved with the history of
different types of music. I suggest this because you probably won't instantly
like styles of music that are significantly different from what you already
listen to. For example, if you're not familiar with jazz, listening to an
acclaimed classic like Miles Davis' _Kind of Blue_ might strike you as boring,
or as just cool mood music, but when you have developed an ear for it, it's
mind blowing.

Unfortunately, it seems like there is a sore lack of good criticism--critical
studies of music that attempt to _understand_ the music more than _rate_ it--
and this is especially true of popular music (pop, rock, rap, country,
electronica, etc.). I can think of one place that's really good for rock
history: Only Solitaire (<http://starling.rinet.ru/music/index.htm>). That
guy's opinions are certainly not the last word on that music, but he does do a
good job of putting artists and albums in context. For other kinds of music,
maybe start with a Wikipedia article and go from there and see what you find.

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gyardley
I recommend reading some good review blogs over anything algorithmic.

I also really like Blalock's Indie Rock Playlist (<http://blalocksirp.com/>) -
a hand-curated torrent with over a hundred songs a month. I go through it
while working or exercising, flag anything that I like, and then check those
bands out later. But that only works for the indie genre.

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abyssknight
Pandora.com and thesixtyone are pretty much it for me. I have the Pandora One
subscription, and I have that running almost 40 hours a week. If I hear
something I like, I create a station for it.

Last.fm had a sweet obscurity filter that would give you crazy indie band
music, which was a nice feature.

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navjotpawera
\+ Spotify gives me a lot of flexibility and choice (when I know what I want
to listen to, or if I can spend sometime to go through the "related/alike"
artists and dig some) It's replaced Itunes almost completely for me.

\+ Last.fm is not built too well IMO to discover new music

\+ Been trying to go back to radio. AOL stopped streaming outside the US.
Yahoo still works.

\+ Been trying to follow a few Music magazine/ Music label blogs which has
proved to be the best way to "discover" new music. Completely automated
services are too, well automated. Such as: <http://www.sixdegreesrecords.com/>
, <http://www.juice.com.sg/music/>

~~~
mrmartin
Another site I didn't see suggested is <http://wearehunted.com/>

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aw3c2
<http://www.jamendo.com>

Just be open minded and try a couple of albums each day. You will surely find
something that appeals your ears/mind and you won't have to pay a dime.

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rdtsc
Try listening to internet radio. If you hear a song you like, look up the
artist and buy the album.

My favorite station is: <http://somafm.com>.

If you like electronic music also try <http://www.philosomatika.com>.

Check out archive.org's live music archive:
<http://www.archive.org/details/etree>.

For classical music: <http://theclassicalstation.org>

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larrywright
I discover a lot of new music from people I follow on Twitter, many of whom
link to Youtube videos or Last.fm tracks. VC Fred Wilson (familiar to most
here, I would imagine) is a good example of someone who tweets about what he's
listening to regularly. I've discovered a number of new artists and sub-genres
that way.

As far as discovering new artists in genres that I really like, you can't beat
Pandora.

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Roridge
Not quite what you are looking for perhaps, but I use <http://blip.fm>

I have found that very useful for finding new music by following (like
Twitter) users who post songs I like, then then daily I get to hear new songs
I haven't heard. I have got into lots of new bands that way.
<http://blip.fm/MCFlurry>

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WorkerBee
Spotify allows you to make and share playlists. I think last.fm does too. Get
playlists from friends (it's like a mix tape, only hi-tech), if you like a
track, click through and listen to some more of the band's output.

Listen to the radio. (I mean on the internet). My favourite for this is radio
paradise. <http://www.radioparadise.com/>

~~~
superted
While on this subject, <http://sharemyplaylists.com/> is a great spotify
playlist sharing site.

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ohm
Morning show with John Richards on Seattle station KEXP Probably the best
radio station I found so far <http://kexp.org/> They stream it in NY on 91.5
from 9am to 12pm

Metacritic

<http://www.metacritic.com/music/>

Write down high rated cd's then listen to samples of songs on Amazon to see if
you like it.

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Roridge
Someone just posted this on HN <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1161919>
<http://audiomap.tuneglue.net/>

It might help you find some new music branching off bands you already like...
it's pretty cool.

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ndc
It's odd that nobody has mentioned Pandora yet: <http://www.pandora.com/>

Put one song in, and it will give a set of songs that are similar to your
song, with explanation why it thinks they are similar.

Too bad it is available only if you are browsing from US IP address.

~~~
randallsquared
I was going to mention it, but then he specifically asked for things outside
his current tastes, which preclude putting something that he likes in Pandora
and expecting something really different. It is true that Pandora sometimes
comes out of left field with a track that's nothing like what I've been
listening to, but I think they consider that a bug rather than a feature. :)

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matrix
One approach that works for me: search for play lists on grooveshark.com that
have songs that you like. Sometimes people put together play lists with other
interesting songs on them (and sometimes they're rubbish, but such is the
nature of exploration).

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pstinnett
A couple of weeks ago I launched Pitchforked, which creates a random playlist
of tracks from Pitchfork.com's Best New Music section.
<http://www.pitchforked.com>.

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DanielStraight
I like <http://www.cdbaby.com> and sister site <http://www.payplay.fm>.

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meurkens
I'd suggest Twones (<http://twones.com>). But maybe that's because I work for
them. ;-)

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danparsonson
I can recommend SoundCloud (<http://soundcloud.com/tracks>)

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amrtn
what about <http://www.thesixtyone.com>?

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diN0bot
listen to good radio stations. i recommend local, college ones.

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dnsworks
I go to a lot of shows, at least 4-6 per month. 1/2 of them have at least one
band I've seen before, the other 1/2 I choose based on logistics and the club.
I ask at each merch booth if they have anything available on itunes, if not
then I'll buy a CD .. I found an incredible band this way last week, the
InCiters.

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zen53
<http://hypem.com/#/popular>

