I have some pretty diverse music tastes. My friends are always amazed at how across the board I am with everything that I listen to (apparently not a lot of people can sing along with Anna Nalick, Snoop, and Chicago). Because I’m always discovering new music, I can’t believe that there are people out there that don’t know how to find new music to listen to. So here we go, how to discover new music.
***This involves a little bit of internet research on your part but it can yield some amazing results. So if you really want to be able to find some good stuff, make sure you have a little bit of time to devote to the cause.***
The Charts
The charts are some of the best places you can check to find new music. You can start with the Billboard Charts, featuring top 100 lists and such. You go through there, and find something that looks intriguing to check out. Looking around the net you can find lots of top _____ charts for all sorts of countries. Some amazing music is being made all around the world, so don’t be afraid to look at places like the top UK charts, college radio charts (even Canadian ones), etc. The bottom line is that there’s charts for top albums, singles, for all genres. Google around and find a category that looks good. Now you’re presented with a list of artists you can take a look at and see what looks promising.
Here’s the current independent artists album sales chart from Billboard. 
There’s 3 artists here that could possibly be interesting. Except I already know about the Eagles, they’ve been around for a while. And the Radiohead album I already picked up when it went digital. But “Vampire Weekend” sounds interesting and intriguing.
Now, we can proceed to see if this band is worth the investment of our ears.
I’ve found an interesting artist…now what?
The first place I go is I fire up iTunes. Sure enough, Vampire Weekend is on there. iTunes is cool because you get reviews, similar artists, other stuff that people like that are into this band, and high quality, easy to use previews of all their songs.
I like Gnarles Barkley. I like the Arcade Fire, and the album has good reviews. After giving it a listen, yah I’m diggin the sound quite a bit. However, if you come across a sound that you aren’t feeling, just head back to the list and find something else. Of course because the song previews are so easy to access, give a good listen to a few of the songs before you decide you like or hate any given group.
Consequentially, you can also use Amazon.com instead of iTunes. I prefer iTunes because the music library is larger and usually I have iTunes open anyway, so it’s easy to find an artist and check them out. Go with whatever works best for you. Some people hate iTunes or can’t use it (like all you fine Linux folks), so do what you can.
Once you’ve gotten a good sampling of the artist, check out their official web site, myspace profile, etc and i’m sure you’ll find lost of good stuff.
Making use of media
The problem with using the charts as a method for discovering new music is that you only get popular stuff off of it, so you have to go about different routes to discover new music. This is where people find that magazines and newspapers come in handy.
I’m not a big fan of Rolling Stone magazine. Entirely too much politics and not enough music. However, they do have some worthwhile things in there. Features on new artists are what helped me discover Interpol. So check out stuff like that, as well as album reviews to see what’s new that might be worth looking into.
Even magazines like Entertainment Weekly can have something interesting every once in a while. Last week I got a supplement from them with the best indie rock albums of the last 25 years. Good stuff. Local independent news media can give you a fresh perspective on what’s out there. In Detroit, we have the Metro Times and Real Detroit Weekly, free independent papers that cover music, movies, among other things. Check for sources like this. Of course, googleing around can find all sorts of websites that cover the same thing. Be creative.
TV can also be good once in a while. And I’m not talking about some top 40 countdown or TRL, but instead look to places like Leno or Jimmy Kimmel Live and check out the musical artists they have on there. That’s how I discovered Esthero.
Basically, keep your eyes open to all media on this one. Go through Ticketmaster and see who’s coming to town on the cheap. Spending $50 a ticket on a big name artist can be fun and exciting, but you can have just as much fun with a $20 ticket on a lesser known artist. Do the same as above only instead of starting with a top ___ chart, just use the ticketmaster listings. Then go have yourself a good time. 
Another cool thing about picking up a cheap show is that you can discover awesome opening acts as well. A couple years ago I went to a show featuring Graham Colton with Blue Merle opening. While waiting in line I found out that a lot of people were there to see some dude named Michael Tolcher who wasn’t even on the bill for the venue that evening. But that aspect turned out to be just as cool as the rest of it.
Even the age old medium of radio can be helpful. A lot of stations will feature new artists, just look for the stuff that doesn’t play the repeat top-40 all the time. Public radio and college radio are great for this, I discovered Lily Allen and numerous other artists after hearing an interview with her on Detroit Public Radio.
Find Artists by Association
Another awesome feature of iTunes and Amazon is the ability to discover new music just by looking at artists you already like. They both have the “here’s what else people are into” feature when you look up a band. For example, a search for Wilco’s album Sky Blue Sky gave me the following recommendations:
Note the page 1 of 10 at the top. So there’s 50 different recommendations here for stuff. An instant guide to everything you might like, they practically do all the work for you. iTunes does the same thing pretty much, although I think Amazon does it a bit better. Here’s what happened when I searched for the Arcade Fire’s album Neon Bible:
The cool thing where I give amazon an edge over iTunes is for their Listmania! feature, which allows users to create lists for whatever and put items in there. For example, you can create a list called “Best Music to Have Sex to” and throw all your favorite music to get freaky to so other people can find it.
Here’s what I found after a google search for “Listmania! amazon white stripes”
It gave me the list there on the left as well as other lists with similar stuff on the right (Egads, more Interpol!). Listmania! is a great way for you to really see what kind of music like-minded folks are into.
Talking to other fans of your favorite bands can also be good to finding out what kind of music you might like. Strike up conversations at concerts or record stores, or if you’re part of an online community feel free to ask around with them as well.
Take a look at the bands that your favorite bands tour with. Look at the openers, the other tour guys, etc. A lot of people will show up to a show late so they don’t have to sit through the opening act, and rightly so, as some opening acts suck. But check them out before you head to the show, see if it might be something you would be willing to sit through or something you can easily dismiss. After all today’s openers could be tomorrow’s headliners. And good music is good music, no matter what.
Social Network Utilization
There are tons of ways that the internet can help you find new music. Sometimes, the music finds you. Either way, social networking can be a big help in discovering new grooves. Even just having a Facbook profile that will update you when friends add a new favorite group to their profile. Even with myspace, we’ve all had an obnoxious amount of bands try to add us as friends, and once in a while you actually get someone who’s good enough to check out.
I’ve even gotten messages from random fans of bands.
Here’s a message someone sent me, the profile is now gone but the message was along the lines of “hey, you don’t know me, i’m just spreading the world about this group I know, check them out”. Who knows if it really was some dude or a ploy set up by the band. Either way, it worked. R0rshak turned out to be amazing, so much so that I purchased the CD and still listen to it pretty often.
There’s a million ways to use social networking to your advantage to finding new music. From myspace to just finding people on Twitter who talk about their musical tastes.
Take Advantage of Freebies
Always, always, always take advantage of free stuff. People that are into marketing and promotions know that people will bite and possibly come back for more. You have nothing to lose by taking that bite. If someone is offering you something for free, take them up on it. There is no risk, so why not?
Sitting at the counter of your local record store and in the hands of people outside of local concerts are sampler CDs, demo discs, all sorts of stuff. They may look something like this:
Or they could be from a specific band, etc. While a random sampler CD like the one above can really be hit or miss, the ones you get outside of concerts are usually much more on the mark. Outside of a Dropkick Murphy’s show I was given a sampler CD by a Tossers street team member, which was really quite good, made for a good listen on the ride home.
Free music is all over the place if you just look for it. Amazon will offer random free MP3s (how I discovered Spock’s Beard) on their site, just as little incentives to sell CDs (and now MP3s) through their website. So it’s worth taking a look at, they might even have a freebie section on there somewhere.
iTunes offers their own brand of freebies as well, every Tuesday they update with 2 or 3 new free (and sometimes DRM-Free as well) tracks for download. Like anything else, these are hit or miss. There have been songs that have been top-40 hits come through here, and there has been weird Opera stuff that nobody would ever want to listen to again. Either way, it’s free, so give it a shot. Who knows what you might discover with it.
Of course, there is always the option of randomly downloading music torrents to see what you get. While this may seem like a good idea, it’s more or less the most random grab-bag of music somebody can imagine. You’ll be wasting more time with illegal music you’ll never listen to than anything else, so it’s more of a pain in the ass, forget about it (the same applies to going to FYE or any other record store that has the “scan and listen to the CD” feature. It’s kinda cool, but ultimately it’s a waste of time.
All In all
These are just some of the ideas you can use to discover new music, and some of the methods that I use personally. There are a million different ways to expand your musical horizons and find new things to groove to, it just takes a little creativity on your part. But that’s what music is all about right, being creative?
