Where do you guys get your music?

[urquell]

I have pretty eclectic tastes in music, and listen to classic rock, pop, punk, new wave, country, funk, blues, folk and jazz, jazz-fusion. I'm one of the growing legion of people who are simply bored of the new music coming out. I occasionally hear new songs that I like, but commercial radio is kind of a musical wasteland for me now, and while I can appreciate what streaming services bring to the table I again find myself listening to a bunch of stuff I don't like trying to find stuff that I do. Since I'm often in areas with limited cell service I like to download music to keep with me, so again streaming isn't usually the best solution for me. I find myself mostly liking older music but also finding myself getting tired of listening to the same stuff over and over. I kind of find myself looking for new music in the style of older tunes, especially in the rock and funk areas. Does this sound like any of you guys and if so can you recommend sources of music where at least some of the crap has been filtered out and good tunes can be found?

 

[Lunaseraphim]

I know this is bad but I pirate my music. I use different platforms to find independent musicians and I have noticed that algorithms have gotten worse and worse over the years but there are ways to hack it. When I want to discover new music, I often type in a search engine a musician or band I enjoy and ask for similar recommendations. I often find reddit threads and blogs and find really cool stuff. I have spotify and often find great things on it, but soundcloud is truly underrated. People make fun of soundcloud but I have found AMAZING dj mixes and fantastic songs & artists on there, you just have to look carefully and spend a lot of time curating your feed and following multiple accounts. I used to really enjoy using youtube to find music, but the algorithm sucks. I use certain websites to download music off youtube and soundcloud. otherwise, I don't know if that is still the case but I remember a lot of die hard music nerds used to have blogs and uploaded rare albums through websites like mediafire, rapidshare etc.

Another way is simply going to shows. It depends on what types of music you like, but I think encouraging artists is super important despite my unethical downloading of music lol. Montreal has so many cool venues and good shows. I often ask friends to take me to shows and raves when I'm up for it.

 

[urquell]

No judgment from me, I pirate music too, and have scraped tunes from Spotify, Youtube and Amazon music, as well as some mp3 pirate sites, but I don't really use those anymore. The problem, as you say, is in the algorithms. The selections of music include tons of random crap that I don't want. Unless you already know exactly what you're looking for already then you have to filter through way too much garbage to find stuff you like. Amazon in particular has a really clunky search system and because Youtube compresses all of its files the sound quality is often crap. I've never tried soundcloud so maybe I'll have a look. In my mind I was hoping to find sites where lovers of particular kinds of music store or aggregate their songs, something like what Myanonamouse does with books. Music selected by people and not by programming. I love going to shows but don't go often enough for that to really be a good source of music references for me.

 

[ThunderLipps]

I use Yahoo music simple and easy to use. I used to buy the songs I wanted but that is not available anymore, not a fan of people who pirate music, basically stealing someone's hard work. I have friends who have music on Spotify and Yahoo, the money is peanuts unless you are a top selling group. I do buy digital copies when available from the group. Jack White recently put out an album ( vinyl only ) that is supposed to be excellent, will need to find that.

 

[Lunaseraphim]

No judgment from me, I pirate music too, and have scraped tunes from Spotify, Youtube and Amazon music, as well as some mp3 pirate sites, but I don't really use those anymore. The problem, as you say, is in the algorithms. The selections of music include tons of random crap that I don't want. Unless you already know exactly what you're looking for already then you have to filter through way too much garbage to find stuff you like. Amazon in particular has a really clunky search system and because Youtube compresses all of its files the sound quality is often crap. I've never tried soundcloud so maybe I'll have a look. In my mind I was hoping to find sites where lovers of particular kinds of music store or aggregate their songs, something like what Myanonamouse does with books. Music selected by people and not by programming. I love going to shows but don't go often enough for that to really be a good source of music references for me.

one of my parents had a job related to the music industry so i was acquainted to various styles of music at a very young age, and unfortunately like you said a lot of streaming services want to push certain types of content over other types of content. the best way to find new music is through word of mouth or thorough research on various internet platforms. last fm is a good website that gives you recommendations based on music you like. just type a band name that you like and it will give you a lot of similar bands.. then you can try to torrent their music or find blogs or reddit threads that uploaded the albums i know youtube has poor quality but soundcloud in my experience isn't as bad and the algorithm is better than spotify and youtube. i hope this helped.

 

[Lunaseraphim]

I use Yahoo music simple and easy to use. I used to buy the songs I wanted but that is not available anymore, not a fan of people who pirate music, basically stealing someone's hard work. I have friends who have music on Spotify and Yahoo, the money is peanuts unless you are a top selling group. I do buy digital copies when available from the group. Jack White recently put out an album ( vinyl only ) that is supposed to be excellent, will need to find that.

i have a lot of friends who are musicians and i agree that when somebody is an independent musician and has low visibility you should absolutely purchase their music.. on platforms like bandcamp you can find a lot of cool stuff.

this may not be your jam but this is an example of something i found recently that i thought was really cool

AWAKENING_, by VRTLHVN

20 track album

vrtlhvn.bandcamp.com

 

[urquell]

one of my parents had a job related to the music industry so i was acquainted to various styles of music at a very young age, and unfortunately like you said a lot of streaming services want to push certain types of content over other types of content. the best way to find new music is through word of mouth or thorough research on various internet platforms. last fm is a good website that gives you recommendations based on music you like. just type a band name that you like and it will give you a lot of similar bands.. then you can try to torrent their music or find blogs or reddit threads that uploaded the albums i know youtube has poor quality but soundcloud in my experience isn't as bad and the algorithm is better than spotify and youtube. i hope this helped.

Had a look at last.fm but found the search system a bit unintuitive and for the unpaid version plus what appeared to be a heap of misclassified bands. Thanks for the suggestiona though. It's prompting me to look for different musical sources.I have been looking in online forums and channels for stuff but you get endless recommendations for the same music over and over or stuff that's really weird. What I've discovered is that most people don't veer too much out of the mainstream commercial channels/songs or they veer so deeply into obscure niches that the music is unrelatable to most people. It's kind of like politics. Would be nice to find stuff in the middle! lol

 

[Lunaseraphim]

Had a look at last.fm but found the search system a bit unintuitive and for the unpaid version plus what appeared to be a heap of misclassified bands. Thanks for the suggestiona though. It's prompting me to look for different musical sources.I have been looking in online forums and channels for stuff but you get endless recommendations for the same music over and over or stuff that's really weird. What I've discovered is that most people don't veer too much out of the mainstream commercial channels/songs or they veer so deeply into obscure niches that the music is unrelatable to most people. It's kind of like politics. Would be nice to find stuff in the middle! lol

I think I'm in the middle but I do tend to be into obscure niches so I might not be helping. What genres of music do you enjoy if I may ask?

 

[IamNY]

Napster.

 

[urquell]

I think I'm in the middle but I do tend to be into obscure niches so I might not be helping. What genres of music do you enjoy if I may ask?

I put a list of genres in the OP

 

[Lunaseraphim]

I put a list of genres in the OP

I know but what bands and artists do you like

 

[talkinghead]

Have you actually subscribed to a streaming service? I held out for a long time, thinking they were for mainly for the banalities of pop music--but they're great. The big ones include so much music, from medieval motets to Miles, from ambient music to the Minutemen, that you'll never run out. I don't pay much attention to the algorithms, canned playlists, and suggestions (don't we all think we listen to an esoteric, eclectic mix of music?) because it's fun to go romping through unknown territories. There's no way to "filter out the crap" because, after all, what's crap to you is heaven to someone else. I use Qobuz (run through Roon on a dedicated music streamer) and Spotify. You can download what you want, so limited internet isn't a problem. Why not try a service for a trial period and find out? I also recommend internet radio; I find that a terrific way to "discover" new music. Enjoy!

 

[urquell]

I know but what bands and artists do you like

Honestly the list is too long to name them all and it's very eclectic so not sure what kind of picture I can paint you.

Have you actually subscribed to a streaming service? I held out for a long time, thinking they were for mainly for the banalities of pop music--but they're great. The big ones include so much music, from medieval motets to Miles, from ambient music to the Minutemen, that you'll never run out. I don't pay much attention to the algorithms, canned playlists, and suggestions (don't we all think we listen to an esoteric, eclectic mix of music?) because it's fun to go romping through unknown territories. There's no way to "filter out the crap" because, after all, what's crap to you is heaven to someone else. I use Qobuz (run through Roon on a dedicated music streamer) and Spotify. You can download what you want, so limited internet isn't a problem. Why not try a service for a trial period and find out? I also recommend internet radio; I find that a terrific way to "discover" new music. Enjoy!

Yes, I have done trials with Amazon and Spotify, and a lot of searching through youtube. I have left music on literally hundreds of playlists playing as background while I do other stuff in order to listen to new music. I have created lists and searched for music from all the bands and singers I could identify and like, but I can't search for something I don't know about so it comes down to random exploring. I have picked lists for one hit wonders and underappreciated bands etc,etc.to get away from popular lists. I haved searched by era and by genre. The streamer lists are terrible, tbh. Searching for "bands like" yields results that blow my mind because how motown "sounds like" hair metal is a mystery to me. Trying to step across eras is tough too. There are modern bands that play sounds like classic rock, for example but because new rock music isn't as commercially viable as pop it doesn't show up in the public eye so good stuff can be hard to find. Same with funk. It's not that it's not out there, it just doesn't have a wide public presence. If you try to do "sounds like" for something old school you get more old school, not modern stuff that sounds like the older tunes. The searches just take up huge amounts of time and I'm looking for some shortcuts.

 

[Batista Mason]

I am subscribed to Spotify. From my understanding, every artist I listen to, they receive a small part of my payment, so it is still supporting them. I still use an old MP3 player when walking outside, which I convert YouTube video into MP3 files. When I can spare some money, I buy some album CDs as collection. Like last year, I bought Metallica's Live CD album from when they came to Montreal last year as a souvenir of my first time going to their concert.

 

[talkinghead]

Searching for "bands like" yields results that blow my mind because how motown "sounds like" hair metal is a mystery to me. Trying to step across eras is tough too. There are modern bands that play sounds like classic rock, for example but because new rock music isn't as commercially viable as pop it doesn't show up in the public eye so good stuff can be hard to find. Same with funk. It's not that it's not out there, it just doesn't have a wide public presence. If you try to do "sounds like" for something old school you get more old school, not modern stuff that sounds like the older tunes. The searches just take up huge amounts of time and I'm looking for some shortcuts.

I totally agree. I guess I'd say that I don't expect any streaming service to "curate" music for me, know what I will like, or offer anything other than a significant range of music. Have you tried internet radio? I find that to be a fine way to discover new music. I also enjoy reading music reviews, doing internet searches, etc. In other words, I do my own research. Roon links other covers of songs--which can be pretty cool.

Is there a particular kind of music that you are looking for? You might post out a specific question out here (or on Reddit, etc). Eg, lots of funk going around these days!

 

[urquell]

I totally agree. I guess I'd say that I don't expect any streaming service to "curate" music for me, know what I will like, or offer anything other than a significant range of music. Have you tried internet radio? I find that to be a fine way to discover new music. I also enjoy reading music reviews, doing internet searches, etc. In other words, I do my own research. Roon links other covers of songs--which can be pretty cool.

Is there a particular kind of music that you are looking for? You might post out a specific question out here (or on Reddit, etc). Eg, lots of funk going around these days!

I've tried Sirius radio anmd have looked at some different NA internet stations. The ones I've found most likely to have an interesting cross section of music are university stations, but at the same time are the ones mostly likely to be aggressively pushing some kind of social or political agenda, in and apart from the music, which annoys me, and also they have a tendency to only have music sometimes mixed with campus affairs and odd talk programs so it's a bit like sifitng for nuggets. lol. I do internet searches and read articles too, but again there's an overhelming focus on current pop or well worn classics and not enough of the in between. You find stuff but the reward seems small sometimes compared to the effort needed to find it. I love doing all of this stuff and it's fun to go down the rabbit hole but it's too time intensive to do all the time.

 

[jjohnston422]

I have a paid Spotify subscription. I have used others and I found the recommendations on Spotify to fit my tastes more accurately. Like others have said, word of mouth and places like reddit are the way to go to find additional music you like. On top of Spotify I go to a lot of concerts in small venues to support lesser known bands. I am more likely to buy a CD or shirt from them as well. Eddie Vedder doesn't need my money (although I love Pearl Jam lol)...I will give it to the musicians just scraping by and trying to make their dreams come true.

 

[ThunderLipps]

Yahoo music has new release sections, stuff that may interest me sections also. I put these on while cleaning the house or cooking and download what I want to keep.