How to search for music

​Much like your favourite meals, you may love the musicians and artists you listen to, but sometimes listening to the same musical diet can get bland and you may find yourself craving something new to satisfy your musical palate. But where do you start? Most people do not go out of their way to spend their time finding new music, often settling for the music they happen to come across from friends and family, or from entertainment such as Radio or Film. Therefore, going out of your way to find new music, particularly when you have certain style, genre or sound in mind, can often be a lot harder than it initially seems due to us not possessing the skills and techniques to discover new music. Well do not worry any longer; Below I have compiled a series of tips and techniques for finding new artists to reinvigorate your musical listening.
 
Google
It is so simple that it might be easy to forget but Google and other search engines can be your friend when you are exploring for new artists to blow your mind. There are so many keywords and search terms that can be used to help you in your search for new sounds. You can ask the search engine to find music similar to a band or artist that you love, or to find music within a certain genre or scene, maybe you are curious as to what the hottest new singles, EP’s and album releases are at the moment; the options are endless. From the results you can follow the links on the search results page to blogs, videos and articles that can answer your query with more information. You will be surprised how quickly you will find new music using this method.
 
Using streaming services
Streaming services are something that is still fairly new to the world and yet, in such a short space of the time their use has become fully ingrained into our day to day lives and with its many advantages it is easy to understand why. We no longer need to dedicate large amounts of space in our homes to our music collections, we can carry whatever music we want with us in our pockets and have an endless library of music to explore. There are a number of ways you can find musicians on streaming services like Spotify. First are playlists curated by both real people and algorithms. You can use them to follow specific musical styles, the top releases and popular songs on the platform. Spotify’s algorithms will also curate playlists (What are called Daily Mixes) with a mix of artists you already love, along with new artists that are yet to listen to.
 
Another option is to go the sites such as last.fm. Last.fm will analyse your listening habits across multiple platforms and then make suggestions for new music you should listen to.
 
Follow Niche Blogs
As music fans we are probably familiar with the big online music blogs such as Pitchfork, NME, NPR and Stereogum, if you are not they are definitely worth checking out and are a useful tools for finding new music. However, they do come with their own problems. The big blogs tend to focus on bigger acts that can pull large amounts of traffic to their websites and therefore finding underground acts through these sites can be difficult. They also tend cast a wider net in terms of the musical genre’s and style’s that they represent. This can be great for eclectic music lovers who will listen to anything and everything and are looking for something to surprise them, but for those of us who have a more refined and specific music taste, such blogs are pretty inefficient for finding new artists to satisfy out interests. So why not look for smaller blogs with smaller followings and a more specific taste of music. There are so many advantages to this. Firstly, small communities of people can build up around these blogs for you to interact and share artists with. Secondly you can guarantee a lot of the music that you hear from such blogs will fit your personal tastes as opposed to the hit and miss nature of the big blogs.
 
Social Media
Social Media sites and forums such as Facebook, Twitter and Reddit provide a number of options to help you find new music. On Facebook and Twitter, you can make a post to your friends or followers asking for music recommendations and you may be surprised just how many replies you receive; people love to share what they think is amazing music. You can also follow pages and other users who are likely to post new music regularly on places like Facebook and Twitter for example: music bloggers, magazines and reviewers who you have discovered and like. Facebook and Reddit also gives you the opportunity to join forums (Groups in Facebook or Subreddits in Reddit) dedicated to a particular music scenes or genres giving you the opportunity to share and discuss with folks who have a like minded music taste.
 
Music Podcasts and Radio
One of people’s regular complaints about radio stations is that they tend to play the same music over and over again and more often these songs do not fit our personal musical tastes. Sure, the music played on the radio might be entertaining enough for your drive to work, but it will rarely introduce you to new musical flavours. So what things can you listen to that will introduce you to new music or music that fits your specific tastes. Well first: actually do a read up of the schedules of your favourite radio stations; You maybe surprised to find that there are specific radio programs that either target new and unknown music or that target specific genres that fit your tastes. Also do not hesitate to find new radio stations, again some stations such as Kerrang! target certain scenes and genres whilst others like BBC Radio 6 target new and underground music. Second: hunt around for some podcasts, there are often podcasts that specialise in certain genres and musical topics, and the best thing about podcasts is you can listen to them any time you want. Many radio stations will offer their shows as podcasts but there are also podcasts available that are set up by as little as one or two individuals and as such will introduce you to artists far outside of the mainstream. Third, there are a number of online radio stations that are not available on standard frequencies or even DAB radio. Many of these online stations will specialise in a particular scene or genre and as such you are bound to find one that fits your personal music tastes. College and University radio is also great as they will often look to play new and unheard music that would no usually appear on underground radio.
 
Look up touring acts
Looking up tour posters can be great if you are looking to find when your favourite artists are going to be playing in a city near you, but they can also be great for finding music from artists that you have never heard of. To do this simply keep an eye out for when your favourite artists announce new tour dates anywhere in the world and then research who the supporting acts are. Most bands will have 1-3 acts who will open the show and warm up the crowd for them. These acts tend to have a few things in common. They tend to have a smaller audience than the headliner and are not as well known and they tend to play music from sam or another similar style of music. By doing this you will quickly find your list of artists to check out will start getting very long very quickly.
 
Music Identification Apps
How often do you find yourself hearing a piece of music that you fall head over heels for only for there to be no chance for you to find out the name of the tune that your ears cannot help but crave more of. Maybe you hear it in a film and cannot track down the music online, or on the radio and the announcer forgets to tell you what the song was, or maybe you were just in your local coffee shop or record store when you heard the song. We have all been there and it can be absolutely infuriating. What you really need is someone with you who has the largest knowledge of music known to man who can hear and track and tell you what it is within seconds. While there may not be such a person in existence, there are apps that are able to achieve this. Apps like Shazam, TrackID and Soundhound listens to the music that is being played and compares it to a cloud database before retrieving the information and showing it to you on your phone. With one of these apps in your pocket you will no longer have to miss a single track and wonder if you will ever come across it again, just take your phone out and find out in seconds.
 
Record shops
Record shops maybe few and far between these days and may seem much more like a novelty than they once where but they can still be a great place to find music and can provide a unique fun experience that the other methods of searching for new music just do not have. Do not be afraid to go and have a look, talk to people working and visiting the shop and ask what they recommend; Go flicking through the CD’s, Vinyl’s and Cassettes to see if there are any covers that catch your eye, look in the sections containing the genre’s you love most and see if there are any recordings that you do not recognise the name of and if the record shop has a listening booth and use it; it might also be worth bringing a friend along and showing each other what you find and share your ideas and thoughts together whilst hunting. Exploring record shops can not only help you find new music but can ensure you have the most fun whilst doing it.