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The SXSW compilation seemed "similar" to one of my musical tastes - rock/pop/folk/punk. To anyone who sampled the comp, are those songs similar to eachother? Compared to my other tastes, they are all similar.
Agreed, for the most part. There are a few songs in that mix that stand out as being non-similar to the bulk of the collection, though.

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Hm, maybe I'm trying to validate that I'm not exposing myself to "the same old music". If I am, how can I find stuff that's different?

I accomplished that in a few ways. First, I asked friends who really knew music for their top 10 list, and then went out and bought the recommended CDs. Some of it was "the same old music", but I gained a new appreciation for it because it came along with a discussion about why that particular selection was made over others.

In the same vein, I've stopped providing a list of CDs I want during Christmas, and other gift-giving times. Now, I just tell people that I like listening to music, and I don't care what they give me, as long as a) they like it, and b) it's a well regarded selection from its genre. That's worked well for some folks, and I'm exploring the jazz world as a result. It hasn't worked so well with other folks, because they fear I won't like whatever it is they pick out, so they end up not giving music (which is a shame, because a getting a selection of music that someone enjoys is a more personal, and treasurable gift than yet another packet of socks).

The second thing I did was luck into walking by more than one CD store which was going out of business. I've been able to walk in, and buy really cheap CDs in genres I knew nothing about, based on nothing more than the album cover. All the "pop" stuff had already been picked through, leaving the non-popular "dregs", and the unknowns. Some of those purchases were flops, and don't make my play-list very often, but others have been gems that launched my music appreciation off in different directions. At prices averaging $3-4 a CD, it was a reasonably cheap experiment.

If you fly lots, ask the person in the seat next to you what they're listening to. Asking strangers what music they listen to can often be better than asking friends, if you're trying to find new music.