Top 10 Ways to Discover New Music

Posted on 03. Nov, 2008 by Kyle Judkins in Internet Tools

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ipod earbuds Most of my life I have strived to find new and interesting music, but I am often far too busy to really dig deep and find new artists everyday.  Now that I am done with college and have a real job, I find that I have even less time to find new music or even stay up to date with all of the new bands.

I have, however, found some great resources that keep me in the loop with minimal time and effort.

Pandora

pandora logo

Pandora is an easy to use music discovery website that has been a favorite of mine for some time.  Pandora allows you to create “stations” by putting in your favorite band or bands.  Then, Pandora will play songs from that artist and artists that have a similar sound to your main artist.  I like Pandora for its no frills approach, as it doesn’t throw a bunch of extra stuff at you.

Last.fm

last fm logo

Last.fm functions much the same way as Pandora, but focuses much more on the social network side of things.  Of all the websites and services on the list, I use Last.fm the most.  I have found that it has a huge library of tracks that doesn’t stop at the end of mainstream.  Their library has exposed me to lots of unknown and underground gems.

StumbleAudio

stumbleaudio logo

StumbleAudio was covered in my previous post Discover New Music with StumbleAudio.  It is a great service that is easy to use, but it has a smaller library that is mainly focuses around smaller unknown artists.

The Hype Machine

hype machine logo

The Hype Machine is a very unique website, in that, it aggregates all kinds of MP3 blogs from across the Internet into one place.  This way you can find out what bands everyone else is talking about and discover them for yourself.

Musicovery

musicovery logoMusicovery presents a much different experience than most of the other services on this list.  At Musicovery, you choose genre, mood and timeframe in order to discover new music.  This is definitely a very unique way to discover new music and is worth checking out.

Skreemr

skreemr logo

Skreemr is an MP3 search engine that returns webpages where MP3’s of the artist you searched are posted.  This allows you to easily listen to your favorite song by that artist.  Skreemr also gives you the option to search for similar artists.

iLike

ilike logo

iLike is a music social network that is similar to Last.fm, but iLike integrates with your iTunes through a sidebar.  This allows you to easily get recommendations from iLike and find more people with similar tastes in order to find find new artists.

thesixtyone

the sixty one logo
thesixtyone allows its users to “bump” up tracks by different artists.  It functions in a way that is very similar to Digg, but it is only for music.  This way you can find great songs and great artists by using the knowledge of the other users on the site.

Amazon

amazon logo

Amazon is a site that just about everyone should be familiar with.  Back before I knew all about the sites listed above, I would go to Amazon and see what else customers bought when they bought an album I liked.  If you keep doing this, you start going down a rabbit hole and can find some great music.  The little snippets that Amazon lets you listen to provide you with a great way to sample the artists as you come across them.

Blogs

What list of places to find music would be complete without blogs?  There are lots of great music blogs out there that keep you up to date with current artists and events.  I subscribe to Stereogum and Pitchfork in my RSS, and I highly recommend them.

Where else do you discover new music?

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84 Responses to “Top 10 Ways to Discover New Music”

  1. aidan

    07. Dec, 2008

    great articles for music lovers!

    Reply to this comment
  2. Mark McIntosh

    15. Dec, 2008

    Don’t forget Gnoosic http://www.gnoosic.com/ and Musicmesh http://musicmesh.net/. Start on Gnoosic and find a new artist, then go to Musicmesh and see a video of some of their songs and who they connect to in similar sound/style.

    Reply to this comment
  3. Alex M

    16. Dec, 2008

    What a brilliant sight, just the job for music lovers.

    Reply to this comment
  4. michael

    04. Jan, 2009

    here is a site with over 40 free songs the mars blue music arcive
    http://www.marsblue.moogo.com
    -enjoy

    Reply to this comment
  5. Josh

    09. Jan, 2009

    http://www.metacritic.com should be #1 on this list.

    songza.com gets an honorable mention

    Reply to this comment
  6. David

    10. Jan, 2009

    Another approach to discovering new music is psychology-based Music Patterns (http://signalpatterns.com/music_survey). It’s based on research by author Dan Levitin (This is Your Brain on Music, World in Six Songs).

    You get a customized playlist based on music that people like you listen to, continually updated as the system finds more ‘people like you’ based on your specified music preferences via an scientifically-based audio-based survey.

    Reply to this comment
  7. Deviant

    10. Jan, 2009

    Finetune is a good one too.

    Reply to this comment
  8. sealy mattresses

    14. Jan, 2009

    Fantastic list, I’ve been using Pandora on my iphone ever since the app released (its convenient if you just here a song on the radio and want to get somethin similar) but i’ll be sure to keep an eye out for some of these other ones.

    Reply to this comment
  9. Joe

    19. Jan, 2009

    Reply to this comment
  10. anonymous

    21. Jan, 2009

    also http://fizy.org could be good choice too…

    Reply to this comment
  11. steinway

    08. Feb, 2009

    Some great sites to help you discover new music. that’s exactly i wanted!! give a thumbs up on su!!

    Reply to this comment
  12. Sonsum

    26. Feb, 2009

    I love Pandora and with the iPhone app you can discover new artists (and songs) on the go!

    Reply to this comment
  13. lennie coleman

    01. Mar, 2009

    what about rateyourmusic.com???

    Reply to this comment
  14. 4ntisocial

    06. Mar, 2009

    Personally, I really like the Mixview feature on the new Zune software. Kinda bulky, but it does provide a lot of new stuff for you to look at, especially if you have a Zune Pass, which I don’t.

    Reply to this comment
  15. yeryer

    10. Mar, 2009

    RateYourMusic.com is definitley way ahead of all those.

    Imho.

    Reply to this comment
  16. The Reviewist

    12. Mar, 2009

    I have been using Pandora for years now to find new songs and groups. I love that place. I have not kept up on the news like I should, but my understanding was that it was having some financial difficulties. Is this still the case, or has that been resolved?

    Reply to this comment
  17. dan

    13. Mar, 2009

    get onto http://www.spotify.com

    it’s going to be the next huge one. if it isn’t already.

    Reply to this comment
  18. [...] Para visualizar, clique aqui. Para visualizar a versão traduzida para o português, clique [...]

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  19. Alex

    30. Mar, 2009

    I’ve discovered lots of new bands and artists by using the “stumble trough myspace” function in Stumble Upon and well 9 out of 10 new bands i hear are really cool.

    Reply to this comment
  20. helena

    31. Mar, 2009

    much thanks for the stumbleaudio and hypemachine links!

    Reply to this comment
  21. Don't Click My Adsense

    01. Apr, 2009

    When I run out of songs, i would normally search youtube for music cover …. there are some nice songs that people are singing and sharing.

    Reply to this comment
  22. Mark

    02. Apr, 2009

    Occasi.com is a search engine for musicians, bands and entertainers - a great source to explore new talent.

    Reply to this comment
  23. James Bond

    13. Apr, 2009

    justhearit.com is better than skreemr

    Reply to this comment
  24. Tim Brando

    18. Apr, 2009

    good post…i just got a beta invite for a new website that looks like it’s going to be a music discovery/networking site… http://www.jamwee.com. signed up for it as it looks like it’s going to be pretty good.

    Reply to this comment
  25. Natalie

    18. Apr, 2009

    i like Muzicons =)

    http://muzicons.com/

    Reply to this comment
  26. Kevin

    21. Apr, 2009

    I personally love using http://www.jango.com :)

    Reply to this comment
  27. Schobbejak!

    28. Apr, 2009

    Be sure to check out http://www.thenewworck.com!
    It’s a mixtape netlabel with all kinds of music!
    All mixtapes for free!

    Reply to this comment
  28. Chris

    28. Apr, 2009

    My favorite mp3 site is http://listen.grooveshark.com/ They’ve got every song imaginable. Plus you can make playlists and it has an autoplay feature so that you can discover new artists based on the music in your playlist.

    Reply to this comment
  29. Simon May

    06. May, 2009

    Ww. Pitchfork. Can’t understand why people like that site.

    Reply to this comment
  30. Matt

    10. Jun, 2009

    I haven’t read all the comments so apologies if someone has already said it but put Spotify on the list. Its great. Can search for a huge selection of different music and listen to a random selection chosen by Genre, oh and its free.

    http://www.spotify.com

    Reply to this comment
  31. Kim

    15. Jun, 2009

    It may be old-fashioned, but this radio station does an amazing job of showcasing new music. And all you have to do is listen.

    http://www.xpn.org

    Reply to this comment

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