How I discover new music on the web
I talked about this on my radio show this morning and I wanted to publish this on here as well in case people couldn’t write down the links: these are some very easy ways of finding new music using on the internet. Those are not the only ways for me to find music but I use these tools every day discover songs that I want to play on my show.
Many readers of my blog will be aware of all the sites below so this might be more relevant listeners of my show on Tide 96.0 in Hamburg.
First of all, if you want to discover music easily on the internet you of course need a Last.fm account. I’m scrobbling everything I listen to to my Last.fm account in order to get events and new music recommended to me automatically by the system. This is a must have.
Over the last few months Spotify has become an essential tool for many people to listen and discover music. I used to use it only to listen to tracks that I knew already but more recently I started using the the shared playlists to find new tracks – I’ve started a heute:pop:morgen collaboratice playlist, feel free to add tracks.
I’ve been talking about Peel before on here. It is basically a software that automatically goes through a bunch of mp3 blogs and finds all the mp3s for you so you can easily download and listen to them. It safes me a lot of time every week when I want to find new songs to play on my show although I still have to go through a lot of tracks that might not be suitable for heute:pop:morgen. Mp3 blogs that I check out regularly include Captain Obvious, Music Is Art and Song By Toad.
I actually still like reading print magazines but after my subscriptions ran out (I must have had at least 10 at some point) I never renewed them. I don’t mind paying for them but having all that paper around is a bit of a inconvenience sometimes. I pick up (print) magazines when I travel but don’t read any on a regular basis any more.
As you can see, what I produce every week is a very ‘traditional’ way of recommending music: putting together 13(ish) tracks, talking about those (amonst other topics) and playing them on the radio. But as much as I enjoy creating this I also still appreciate this as a way of finding new music: the BBC shows are something I listen to on a regular basis but only after they went on air in the iPlayer or (where available) as a podcast.
What am I missing?
Tags: bbc, discover music, iplayer, last.fm, magazines, mp3 blogs, peel, spotify
February 11th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Thanks for the links to the blogs, I didn’t know them before!
February 12th, 2009 at 11:02 am
I really like your Spotify Playlist!!! I discovered that Spotify scrobbles what you´re listening to directly to LastFm if you want. Here is the deal: http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2008/12/18/spotify-scrobbles
But watch out
-> I hardly ever use LastFM ever since because there is no need….
I use http://www.yourspotify.com and http://www.mixifier.com on Facebook a lot when I discover new music.
Keep sharing,
Tobi
February 12th, 2009 at 11:17 am
I used the last.fm scrobbler for a while back when 3 guys presented last.fm in some dark shed filled with nerds, but it was so unstable it kept crashing my iTunes. I’m sure all this isn’t an issue any more, but it somehow stuck.
What I do very much recently is to read and listen my way through collaborations: let’s say M.I.A worked with Santogold, Santogold with Jay Z and Spank Rock, and Diplo released a Mixtape of her stuff; this introduces me to all things that all these people did, updated me on what Jay Z is doing these days, and I veer off further based on this and other Diplo Mixtapes.
I do the same thing with your show, for example when a track I already know is a remix by someone else, and so on.
It’s definitely less exposure than an automated recommendation, but I have a lot of direction, and so I get to listen to a lot of new music with very little crap.
Some music blogs I tap into
http://fleamarketfunk.wordpress.com/
http://thesexyresult.blogspot.com/ (old)
http://thesexyresult.wordpress.com/ (new)
http://brrrln.blogspot.com/
February 12th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
@Matthias Willerich: “3 guys presented last.fm in some dark shed filled with nerds” – Hehe, I like it. That certainly sounds like Last.fm. Thanks for the links as well.
@tobi: You are very right, Spotify scrobbles as well now, which made it even better. Lets see what other features they will add over the next few months.
February 12th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
[...] is an ongoing buzz around Spotify – a new streaming music service from London – the latest news is that they closed a deal [...]
February 12th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Hey Jonas, hope you’re well! Peel is great but what about Hype Machine (hypem.com)? Or is that too obvious?
February 12th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
PS: can’t get that collaborative spotify playlist to work, do you need to be a subscriber?
February 13th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I like Shazam to identify music I encounter in clubs, bars, stores, taxis, whatever.. it’s not really “identifying new music on the web” but letting the help you identify what you’re listening to.
I’m actually very often impressed that Shazam knows a lot of non-mainstream music.
February 13th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
@James: Hype Machine is great and should certainly be added to the list. That’s how I found the MP3 blogs I mentioned above. Anthony (the guy who runs Hype Machine) is a good friend of mine too so I should have mentioned him before…
@Till: I used it a few times and I agree, it find pretty much everything. But I used it more as a ‘gimmick’ when I’m out, maybe I should use it more often…
February 21st, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Try out my music roamer! http://www.musicroamer.com