ilovefuzz.com

Hey guys, as websites have changed over the years, I've had to adopt new methods to find cool new music. Myspace used to be a great resource, but then it got real shitty. Then I used related youtube videos, but since they have changed their algorithms over time, I've found it harder to get good related videos. Spotify is okay to find music but there's a lot of great bands that aren't even on there. I never really liked Pandora. Last.fm is okay but their radio keeps playing songs by artists I know I already don't like. I've had the best luck using bandcamp, where bands can recommend other bands to check out. I've found some awesome bands this way. Of course bandcamp also has a limited pool of bands, but there's a really good abundance. I also used to get recommendations on a different forum that focused on "mathy/experimental/heavy" music for discussion on the whole site, but it died many years ago.

So what do you guys have good experience with?

What kind of music do you wanna listen to?

my favorite bands are usually experimental in some way, but I'm pretty open minded. I like a lot of electronic and heavy music too.
this is from my last.fm page

last.fm related artists, but it's kind of a crapshoot.
ILFbros
4chan's /mu/ board when they're not shitting up the place with memes
Sometimes I'll be looking for an album and find it on a music blog alongside other cool stuff

Judging from your last.fm list, you might dig this :

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8Hia3i3yBw[/youtube]

I just usually keep my ears open. Between here and YouTube (where I do most of my listening) is where most of my new music suggestions come from. I find on YouTube it's better to subscribe to channels for new music than to rely on the related videos for recommendations.

I can't really help you with the 'put on a playlist and go' aspect of it, but I lurk in the music forum ( and the What Are You LIstening To Right Now thread) pretty religiously. A lot of my music comes from that. And record labels. There's a couple, like Important, that put out a lot of stuff I really like, and so I'm on their mailing list.

Achtane wrote: ILFbros

This and mates.
Occasionally I'll stumble on something on my own while chasing youtube clips or following up stuff that sounds interesting from interview name dropping.
Every now and again (though not often these days) I'll catch a rad local act I hadn't heard of when out. That's always fun.

Spotify is good about recommending music based on stuff you like, so I can just get on there and I'll typically have 3-4 new bands to check out. Its kind of hit or miss, but I've found some really good stuff in there.

KEXP's youtube channel is my main resource for new stuff.
Checking out the other bands on certain labels.
Also, following bands that I like on Facebook, seeing them mention other bands from time to time.

Genre-ish internet radio stations that play stuff you dig could also play stuff you don't know but dig. SomaFm, Live365, TuneIn. Pandora's channels for artist or song where they try to play similar stuff can be good or bad. (Examples: The XTC channel is the best early 80s artist channel for not bogging down in shit. The Replacements channel was trolling with how bad the matches were.)

Gone Fission wrote:Genre-ish internet radio stations that play stuff you dig could also play stuff you don't know but dig.

Good call. I used to live in Boston and loved all the college radio stations for introducing me to new music. Now that all college stations are online, there's no reason not to tune in to listen to any/all of 'em. Sure to find something somewhere.

circa. 2008-12 or so i was religiously following a bunch of blogs, mainly for mathy experimental bands - plenty of swords, thesirenssound, breaking the music, a shitload of others.. but they've mostly either died out or the music scenes and subgenres they focused on got super fucking generic and boring and i couldn't bear to sift through a bunch of bands that sounded exactly the same as each other.

these days it's really a mix of sources for me:
- recommendations from a couple of good friends that are open-minded and proactive with finding interesting music
- music forum on ILF, there are a few members here that have posted stuff i've ended up getting super into so i find it worth my time checking out the stuff that's posted even if a lot of it isn't my thing
- records labels (i go to the label page of a band i really like and check out all the other roster artists, there is a metric shit-ton of labels on bandcamp too and some of them have really cohesive rosters)
- bandcamp recommended artists and searches using tags for anything i'm into at the time
- SOUNDCLOUD - fans barely ever use it, but if you find some cool active musicians on there and check out the other songs they've 'liked' or whatever you can go on an endless journey of discovery. i actually find this the best method for discovering things i would not be able to find any other way.
- i don't use last.fm but i go on the site sometimes to check out related artists because they have a lot of obscure old pre-internet artists that aren't really catalogued in many other places.

i agree that youtube related videos somehow don't work as well as they used to anymore. i also think streaming services are silly but thats another argument for another day. radio can be cool but it's maybe a little less flexible than other formats so i've never been into it.

the biggest problem i've had is almost being so addicted to finding new music that i don't get around to re-listening to a lot of the stuff i like

I use ILF, lastrit.es and angrymetalguy. I put everything that gets a decent review into a Spotify playlist and then edit the playlists after I've listened through them leaving me with just the goods.

At least when it comes to metal most stuff is on Spotify - even trve kvlt dudes seem to get on there.

Other than that I mostly listen to old jazz, and there's so much good stuff out there I don't even have to try. I just put in anyone, say Art Blakey, and there is always something to listen to. Old dudes were prolific.

Some great ideas in here, peeps. I too have found some great stuff through Bandcamp - worth noting for exploration is that anyone can set up a "fan account," which showcases your Bandcamp collection, just like ChetM mentions bands doing in the original post. If you've set your account up with a fan page, post it here! We can all check out each other's stuff!

Mine is http://bandcamp.com/jrmy

- Bandcamp.
- Review sites.
- Band and record label Facebook pages.
- ILF What are you listening to? thread.
- Go on Amazon, look up an album you like, and then look at "people who bought this also bought."
- Music-map.com