How do you listen to music?

I use RiMusic. It’s a YT Music fronted, look it up on F-Droid.

How do you discover music?

• Various films (especially James Gunn’s)
• Wikipedia
• YT Music “For you” section and “Radio” feature

I feel like I’m out of the norm for listening to music these days, especially with the influence of tiktok on music, as I almost never listen to individual songs or playlists. I only ever listen to entire albums, one at a time. I have a massive amount of music that I’m interested in, and each day I just pick an album that I feel like listening to. For discovering music, I have three main sources; two friends who share similar music interests; youtube recommendations, and songs I just hear and then think about some time later.

I use rateyourmusic.com to research a genre/artist/ album and then follow where it leads me. It’s amazing how much music is outside the algorithms, and then you get to find them in a differ context too.

yt music does all good and also friends

Call me basic, but I have no shortage of new music from Spotify and YouTube. Spotify recommendations plus shared playlists from friends. There are a handful of YT channels that host pretty consistent quality musicians, like NPR Tiny Desk, KEXP, Colors Studios, Zildjian Live.

Pandora works pretty well for discovery, and has multiple “modes” so you can hear album tracks, not just hits. Just put in a few songs of a genre and/or artists you like to build a station of similar suggestions. Use thumbs up/down to tune it. I will warn you that after a year of doing this, it might get in a rut of playing things you’ve already thumbed up. If that happens, switch modes or create a new station.

YouTube suggestions also has a pretty decent suggestion algorithm if you start thumbing up music you like. It’s also a good place to look at a particular label’s catalog.

Both are free with ads.

Also, if there’s an artist you like, be sure to look up who produced your favorite tracks. Chances are they’ve done similar music with other artists.

I am still riding the MP3 train. Music from indies and smaller bands I buy on Bandcamp or directly from the artist. Bigger bands from larger labels and really obscure stuff I get from Soulseek.

Discovering music got more difficult after leaving Reddit, I lurked on a lot of genre subs. Now I mostly find new stuff through friends or Youtube recommendations.

I rarely discover anything new, but I’m currently in the process of getting my entire CD and vinyl collection onto Plex - so in a way I’m rediscovering music that I liked years ago but haven’t heard in ages, especially stuff that wasn’t available on any streaming platforms.

It’s a slow process though, especially the vinyl - I’ve just about finished the As, but that’s one of the smallest sections! Fun though :-)

1-3 hour long mixed on SoundCloud. Mostly Jungle/D&B, with some house and techno for balance. Also, I’ve been really enjoying listening more about vocals and metal on The Charismatic Voice. (Rammstein link)

Personal recommendations. Sometimes take a chance on something I see on Bandcamp. Music/artists from TV shows and movies. Music I hear when out and about, Shazam is a wonderful app for identifying tracks.

c/metal

Youtube.

I realised a few years back that my music tastes had stagnated, that I hadn’t liked any new bands in… too many years, and that I was on the way to becoming to be a stuck-in-the-past old fart.

So I nuked my youtube data to glass and started again from scratch with The Technique.

Open all the interesting-looking music in new tabs, don’t-recommend-channel annoying crap, especially reaction videos. Flick through each tab, like and add to genre playlists anything cool, and open a bunch of tabs from the recommendations on that page. If I get three solid bangers from an artist, subscribe. Go with original artists rather than reposts where possible.

Rinse and repeat.

If the algorithm starts getting stale, browse and listen through playlists I want to hear more of (often using a third-party shuffle site), to dredge up the silt.

I don’t generally listen to much of a song while browsing - you can tell from a handful of samples if it’s for you or not, and moving on quickly stops it from getting tedious.

I have found and enjoyed vastly more new music in the last few years than I did in the two decades before that. It’s awesome.

Favourites currently are:

• Internet radio. Especially radiofreefedi.net which features music from people on the fediverse. I especially like their comfy channel. #radiofreefedi #RFF

• Music podcasts. The Add To Playlist podcast from the BBC is my favourite. Each track they add is inspired by the previous one. Loads of great music, plus interesting guest musicians talking about music history, theory and vibes.

• ViMusic. This is an open source front end app for YouTube music on android. No payment, adds etc. You can get it on f-droid. Found a few cool tracks via the algo but not as many as previous options.

I have to say though that, like the boomers who went before me, I feel that music in general has become worse. I’m blaming the ‘winner takes all’ effect of commercial streaming platforms for the narrowing of artistic culture and the debasement of musicians.

Minnesota public radio has some great stations. The DJs read the sponsor spots, so no traditional “commercials” with sirens and megaphones.

https://www.thecurrent.org/

I watch The Needle Drop on YouTube. He’s a music reviewer. I don’t necessarily agree with the idea of being so critical of an art form that’s so subjective, but following his channel is a great way to stay up to date on noteworthy new albums coming out.