Music is one of my huge hobbies, not exactly a life long one like drawing or video games. This meaning I got into it in the last couple of years. I personally had never had a problem finding new shit to try and venturing out. Idk if it's because I was never that into Spotify or being just tech savvy. Apparently other people struggle with it or don't know where to start. Which I don't blame em, most shit is mouth feed by the algorithm which on most music apps prioritize what's making em money. This inherintley hides less popular music or shit's that's not gonna make the company *cough* Spotify *cough* money. So me being the ultra cool and sick person I am I made a guide! Totally not me making random shit for my website.
= Artist Spider Web =Spider web?? What the hell does that mean?? It's a phrase that I just coined a couple seconds ago to describe the way that a lot of artist are interconnected in a whole bunch of ways. Your favorite artists aren't secluded to themselves, they got friends, inspirations, and people inspired by them. They've most likely collabed with others for a album or song, usually those people in that collab have a similar sound or type of music they make. Especially if the shit they collabed on is similar to that first artist. An example off the top of my head is how I found Sen dog and his projects. One of my favorite bands ever are Downset, the lead singer, Rey was featured on a song from a band that Sen Dog lead. I thought the song was dope and ended ordering the full album off Discogs. BOOM a new album added to my collection with a quick search of my favorite artist discography.
Another connecting string in the spider web is recommendations from the artist. There's literally no artist that doesn't consume other people art. There's plenty of places where they say them. Interviews, mentioning it in a song, or making mixes themselves. Shit like NTS have a bunch of artist featured doing whole DJ sets with these mixes. I mean actual shit they put together themselves, not that auto generated slop Spotify tells you they did. Internet Radio has it's own section but this was worth mentioning here. But you should like totally check out NTS.
= Radio =What are we in 2005 who tf still listen to radio, especially at home. Believe it or not this used to be a major ave of discovering new shit. It's still a great method!! There's two ways you can listen to it, with an actual physical radio or Internet Radio. I preferably use internet since I'm not limited to local but if you're close to some dope station you may not have too. I use Wacup to listen, they display the current playing song so it's easy to get the song/artist. It also has great organization for the stations. I usually have it in the background while web surfing with a notepad next to me for songs that really catch my attention. Most stations are specialized towards a certain genre. One of my favorites is Athens Noise Rock, they play either noise rock or hardcore so it was pretty much made for me.
So not every radio in one database so you gotta find it yourself. Personally some quick searches on the internet and using forums usually gets me what I want to find. There's a radio show I tune into every Friday at 22:00 for Crap from the Past. Can't even remember how I found it, might've been through somebodies website. Anyway thats not on SHOUTcast or anything similar so I gotta use the stations website for it. I'll edit this if I find a program that'll let me.
= Labels =Rule number one: stay away from larger labels, them niggas don't got no type of cohesion within their releases. Which makes sense since they're huge corpos ewwwwwwww. Smaller more focused labels like Epitaph or Ebullition Records is where you'd go. Even if they don't exist anymore like Death Row they still got value in they're discography. My main method of finding labels is going onto a Artist bandcamp then going onto the Labels page if listed. Theres a good chance that the rest of the bands under the same label is also on there. Another way is going onto Discogs and going onto the labels page. These small ass labels stick to their niches so you should be finding similar stuff.
= Online Publications =Online publications are usually just former mags posting they're stuff online now. So think of them as just digital mags. Magazines used to be a huge part of the music discovery process before internet. I recommend looking at the websites of them, they usually still have people from those days on their editorial team. Writing the same shit they did decades ago. Most of the time they're focused on a certain type of music. Some of them are shadows of their former selves like XXL so watch out for that.
They're publications that completed originated online, like Band Camp Daily and...Pitchfork. These usually have solid write ups on new releases and has put me onto some good shit. In bandcamps daily case you can listen to the music they talking about right in the article so that's dope.
= Internet(RYM, Discogs,on the radar) =Websites like Rate Your Music or AOTY can have it's own problems being mostly user led. Like review bombing or pushing more popular shit. But it's as useful as any website you're able to leave reviews on, like Mal or Letterbox. Niggas on there have good ass taste if you know where to look. Use filters or look at recent releases. It also allows you help other's by leaving reviews. I mean actually ones not joke shit, that pisses me off.
Youtube is your friend. Well atleast one you can use as a way to find better friends. There's plenty of archive channels like Felopunk or Hate5six that post a whole bunch of obscure albums and footage from shows. Plenty of place I mentioned before also use youtube to host their videos or are just on there. On the Radar and Tiny Desk comes to mind.
Since there's a ongoing theme of using things that normies don't be using cuz it aint 2005, forums and image boards. Theres only like one completely music based forum from the top of my head. But you'd be surprised how completely unrelated forums have fire ass music sections. Retro Game Talk and Mal's comes to mind, am I biased cuz I post a lot there? Yes. I would mention 4kek but it's down and no alt chan really has a board for music. Rip /m/, you had some fire taste.
If that shit scare you reddit is there ig. Found some cool recs on there but sometimes the unfunny shitposts are annoying and it's not really my type of site.
= Literally going outside and trying new things =Some chronically online loser is telling you to go outside is kinda ironic but fr do it. Go to your local music scenes, record stores, or thrifts. Pick up a random ass album with a cool cover or see if your punk scene is worth shit. You never know what you might find. I found White Zombie after picking up La Sexorcisto Vol 2 because I like the demon ladies tits on the back. Another band I found was called Cheerleadr that was a meh alt rock band that had one album and has very little info of them online. Most I could find was an interview from 1999 and someone saying they went to one of their shows in 2015. Not even a online rip exist on youtube! You won't find new shit without trying random stuff.