How do you find new music?

Hey guys, I was wondering how people hunt down new artists and music. Does anyone know of any decent site that gives information about new music releases?

I generally just use Metacritic and look at the new releases section and then listen to them on youtube, but it feels a bit like rummaging through a bargain bin.

I usually go to itunes top 10 and then branch off of the related artists section.

i find new music through friends, forums, and generally browsing the internet. always bound to find something interesting.

@Brockly46 said:

I usually go to itunes top 10 and then branch off of the related artists section.

This but I usually go into greater detail into all the sub genres and see what itunes recommends.

I don't normally buy music from itunes unless I can't find it anywhere else, but for browsing music that's probably a good idea thanks.

i find new music through friends, forums, and generally browsing the internet. always bound to find something interesting.

Day[J]. 
 
Usually I get music from my dad or I just stumble upon it. 

Pandora.

Hey guys...Adele is kind of awesome

Friends. The occasional YouTube surf. But there was a site I found once that visually linked similar artists and bands. You inputted an artist's name and it would cluster like music groups around your input, much like a string and push-pin graph, conveying similarity by distance and line thickness. I wish I could find that site again...

I usually just listen to Pandora stations of some of my favorite groups and jot down the name of an artist if I really like one of their tracks.

I usually stumble upon it thanks to it being inserted into a random youtube video, commercial, tv show or something. If I do happen to go searching for it on my own, which is extremely rare, I usually just head to last.fm and see what artists are similar to ones I already listen to.

Other than satellite radio, I find new music randomly on the internet.

Fucking about on YouTube, really.

Mostly blogs, related artist on sites like itunes or last.fm. I sometimes check out reviews on a few websites and look into the artists, usually I find interesting things.

The bands I listen to end up leading me to other bands some how. Motion City Soundtrack lead in to Jenny Owen Youngs and Archers of Loaf who lead me to Dave House and Crooked Finger!

Blogs and forum lurking.

I stumble upon it.  Im not that kind of person that downloads whatever I can just to say I have over a thousand songs on my phone

Friends, Youtube, forums, clicking the links of bands on Wikipedia, and most importantly Pandora.

If you're searching for new music to listen to, then those are the avenues through which you will find it.

Want to know something that surprised me? Attack! Attack!'s newest album actually might be worth listening to.

You could check out thesixtyone.com. It's a great way for discovery new, up and coming bands.

I'm not a US citizen so Pandora pretty much says 'no sir' unless I'd use a proxy which is too much effort for me.

If you find you tend to like related artists, try poking around Allmusic.com. They have a write up on artists and then link them to artists they were influenced by or influenced and you can easily stumble across new bands that are pretty cool. Oh, and if you have a smartphone--one of those apps like Shazaam that can 'listen' to a song playing and tell you what it is is great! That way if you're out and you hear cool music playing in a bar or store, you can find what it is and start looking into them.

@believer258: That album cover looks like it has two dicks on it.

@PeasantAbuse said:

@believer258: That album cover looks like it has two dicks on it.

I thought the same when I saw it. I don't think that's what it's supposed to be, though.

Still, that doesn't have any impact on the tune in question.

You research what David Bowie and Frank Zappa like and move on from there.

In the beginning, it was Amazon a lot. Then clicking on related artists and giving them a quick listen.

Amazon does a pretty good job of finding similar artists and normally i can spend an hour or so just browsing and listening to samples. Also their prices are just as good as itunes and you get free cloud storage.

I used to get recommendations and 'samples' when I was teaching high school. Radio in SF is pretty useless in finding new music. Occasionally I'll stumble upon some good stuff on XM radio.

Last.fm. It can be frustrating if, like me, you're too liberal with the "love" button, but I found some great bands through them. Kingfisher Sky, most recently.

Honestly I found a lot of my favorite bands by hearing artists I like mention them in interviews or do covers of their songs. For example I found out about Fugazi and Joy Division because John Frusciante mentioned liking Fugazi and he covered a Joy Division song real well. Also sometimes its just random discoveries on the internet. I heard about a collaboration album between the roots and john legend, Wake Up!, and really liked John Legends work on other artists stuff like Common. I loved Wake Up! and began listening to the roots.

A great way to listen to full albums before buying is by using Spotify. I have listened to the last few albums I bought a few times before ever buying them because of Spofity. Its pretty damn awesome.

Friends and also surfing through youtube videos. Also learned of a few awesome metal bands from the show Todd and The Book of Pure Evil.

Doesn't help you much, but word-of-mouth is where I find most good new tunes.

@Brockly46 said:

I usually go to itunes top 10 and then branch off of the related artists section.

This!

@Video_Game_King said:

Fucking about on YouTube, really.

pretty much.

allmusic.com or http://pitchfork.com/ is a great start, well it depends on what music you are in to. and i buy monthly music magazines.

@mlarrabee said:

there was a site that visually linked similar artists and bands. You inputted an artist's name and it would cluster like music groups around your input, much like a string and push-pin graph, conveying similarity by distance and line thickness. I wish I could find that site again...

sounds like this site

Through friends using Spotify.

I see it with my mind's eye

Surfing the wild waves of the net or when I watch movies or especially when watching tv shows, I get exposed to a lot of great music.

Shows like Sopranos, Supernatural, Sons of Anarchy (apperently I like shows that stars with the letter s) have introduced me to some great songs and artists.

Surprised that I ever find any. Although tend to find stuff on Youtube occasionally.

I talk to my friends and see what stuff the like that i might like. and then i branch from there.

I usually discover them on youtube somehow. Not sure how, they just appear when I'm searching for something related.

I'm actually setting up a company regarding the promotion of new, unsigned artists. I can't say more about it at the moment, but if all goes well, we should be live in a few months. I'll definitely spam it on GB at that time!

My main answer for now, though, would be Digitally Imported and SoundCloud.

Spotify, usually by jumping between related artists. Friends, obviously, and the internet is filled with opinions.

forums, friends, youtube, who other artists promote and so on

@the_OFFICIAL_jAPanese_teaBAG said:

I stumble upon it. Im not that kind of person that downloads whatever I can just to say I have over a thousand songs on my phone

wow that kinda alot. i have 5 but then again i never listen to music on my phone since the sound is really bad or not good enough on most phones.

i do however have around 20k songs on my mp3 player

I usually use YouTube and look through similar videos on the side. I tried using stuff like Spotify, Pandora and Last.fm but most of the stuff they played that were "related" to the music I listened to just annoyed me.

Lately I've been using Sound Cloud and listening to artists/DJs/producers who upload large mixtapes (song compilations well over an hour in length) and when I hear a tune I like, I look through the comments to see what the song is.

@Xeiphyer: That's pretty cool. It doesn't work perfectly and it's a bit shallow, but still, that's quite a nice way to find bands that are in some way related to what you like.

Anyone who doesn't check what Pitchfork likes and dislikes is a total music noob.

Normally go to iTunes and look through their top singles etc lists

Last fm pointed me in the direction of stuff i found out i love. It will take the music you listen to and make suggestions. The xbox version being that whole premise introduced me to alot of music.

Sometimes i check out bands I know I should check out or else its because bands are in love with another band. I was a big fan of the japanese band polysics who pay homage to Devo all the time. I listened to DEVO found out i have been listening to DEVO my whole life and thus became a spud and DEVOtee.

Otherwise its utterly random.

The pub is another. I was introduced to The Dresden dolls since my friend would put it on the Video Jukebox and I was interest to love in 3 minutes. One time a guy had a external speaker for his Mp3 in the pub I was hooked. He told me the band I tried to write it down....next day it was gibberish as I was drunk. So two weeks of obsessing I saw him again got the bands name listened to them and loved them alot. i started talking to him about them and he went "look ill copy a cd for you." He threw on them and other smiler folk to fill up the cd. with the folder called "Tunes for the dude." I enjoyed it lots. Bella fleck and the Flecktones is the main band then this put me onto Victor Wooten on the cd aswell as he pointed me to Jaco Pastorius.

Right now I am jamming to the Soundtrack to an anime movie I just finished watching and was blown away by.