Ever got a bit bored of your well-trodden albums and wished you knew some good places to discover wicked new music? I know I’ve certainly written the odd admit-how-uncool-I-am Facebook status “Anyone got any new music recommendations?”. Here are some top tips and places to easily discover great new music and be the envy of all your friends.
MUSIC BLOGS & AGGREGATORS
There are a lot of music blogs out there that can point you in the right direction for new recommendations, but a step above these is aggregators. A blog aggregator analyses what music is most being blogged about, shared and listened to – bringing together the best new music the Internet is currently salivating over. One of the biggest aggregators is Hype Machine. Hype Machine has hand-selected over 700 blogs to pick through and collate playlists, comment and analysis from. It means all you have to do is pop by one website (or app) to pick up a dose of new music recommendations. It’s also great to see what has naturally risen out of all the rubbish on the Internet, knowing it’s been carefully selected by someone who really cares about creativity and awesome music.
If you’re looking for a little more depth check out Gold Flake Paint (recommended by a friend who seems to have a near endless list of wicked new music). Gig reviews, interviews, curated Spotify playlists – a great way to spend a lazy afternoon and self-described as “A music geek paradise where you’ll find your new favourite band in less than an half an hour.” They also do ace compilations available from Bandcamp.
PURSUE PLAYLISTS
Why not get someone else to put all their favourite music in one place for you to peruse? Spotify is amazing for playlists – so much so that the BBC music supremo George Ergatoudis recently moved job to collate music for them. As we’ve talked about before, the LP album could be coming to an end as the playlist takes more precedence. The age of easy music consumption has led to the prominence of the best tracks from a plethora of projects being thrown together on streaming service playlists – but what a great way to find new music!
Playlisting is one of Spotify’s best features, and one Apple Music (and the rest of the streaming crowd) are woefully trying to catch up on. Applying the ‘flocking’ nature inherent in social media to a galactic-sized library of music has produced amazing results – following people whose music tastes you associate with or admire throws up many new music recommendations you might not have come across another way. Finding an interesting theme to tie together a catalogue of otherwise unassociated music is a beautiful way music consumption has evolved in the 21st century.
SHAZAAM LIKE THERE’S NO TOMMOROW
Shazaam is my favourite app – it listens to any recorded music that’s playing where you are, works out what track it is and gives you a link to listen to it. Genius. If I hear a track I like out and about I’ll whip my phone out to Shazaam it and instantly discover a new artist I can dig into. Just make it a habit! Keeping your ears pricked up to life’s soundtrack means you can stumble upon new bands in cafes, shopping malls, dentist waiting rooms…anywhere.
Listen out, get curious and dig deeper when you find who the artist is. It’s like having a music encyclopedia on you at all times. Here are the last 10 things I Shazammed (newest first) – and it probably reveals quite a lot about my music tastes!
All About Us – Teen
OK – Madeon
Miss Sarajevo – George Michael
All I Want – Passion Pit
Journal Of Ardency – Class Actress
Could Be Wrong – Fickle Friends
Good Morning – Nextale Nailze
The Calling – Rene LaVice feat. Ivy Mairi
Heads Will Roll (A-Trak Remix) – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
We Own It (Fast & Furious) – 2 Chainz feat. Wiz Khalifa
Tunnels – The Hundred In The Hands
Don’t Wait – Mapei
