How do you get new music?

Im coming up to the 1 year anniversarry of my RIO. We are very happy together and looking forward to many more years. The one thing I've noticed, is that I've completely stopped listening to the radio. (LA programming SUCKS ASS.) So, I was wondering, is anyone else in the same boat? How do you find new music? I've tried launch.yahoo.com, but the quality is awful when I pump it through my stereo. Anything else out there?

Thanks
-Ted

About half of my new music comes from channel 816 on DirecTV. That is the audio-only Metal channel. Most of the stuff is junk, but the sound quality is high and there are no commercials.

The other 50% is recommended from others or opening acts at concerts. I listen to the radio, but it's almost always talk radio.

I never listened to the radio to begin with. Even before the internet, and not listening to the radio, I still bought new music regularly. I generally depended on word of mouth and hearing friend's albums to decide what new music I want to buy. Sometimes I would hear a tune on a movie soundtrack or something and get into an artist that way.

Nowadays, you can find music similar to your tastes by browsing your favorite artists at allmusic.com or amazon.com. The Amazon "other people who bought this album also bought X" feature is rather good, actually. And you can go through and rate albums you own and have it make recommendations. Agreed, the recommendations are not always perfect, but that's why the offer audio samples.

For instant gratification, many record stores now offer kiosks where you can sample large numbers of albums right there in the store.

DirecTV and XM radio.

Well, UNLIKE the other two, *I* listen to the radio.
Having WORKED in it for four years (syndicated AM and Commercial FM) I still have to. When driving cross country, I like to listen to other stations to see how they compare with my old transmitter.

Since *MY* tastes vary greatly (about the ONLY thing I WON'T listen to is Rap.), I'll actually pick a random word from the dictionary.
Enter that word into some P2P sharing client.
Keep picking/testing songs until I find one I like.
Then go out and buy that artist's CDs

Strange, but it's always worked for me so far. If I end up NOT liking the artist/CD, my roomie will, or someone I know will enjoy the CD.

Me.

The one thing I've noticed, is that I've completely stopped listening to the radio.

I was the case that since September 6, 1996 local radio had become more or less useless to me, and I got my "new" music by listening to stuff while on the road. For me, new actually means "old but but forgotten or old but new to me".

Anyhow, the local dinosaur rock station actually did something a few weeks back where they played I think their whole playlist: 2922 songs. This was a promotion where they were basically expanding their playlist.

They're much more listenable for long periods of time than before. It's not "too little too late" but I'm not as excited as I would have been otherwise.

I must admit that I'd still like to be able to have a DJ on my empeg. Hmmm.

I wonder if I can do something where I hijack a (fixed) fid and periodically replace it with a festival-generated wav of like the weather, which just leaves me with needing a way to schedule it.

I guess I hadn't thought about this before. Is there a way to send commands to the player, to insert a playlist item? I could preinit-fork something which sleeps until on the half hour and then inserts a weather forecast or a traffic report or something.

http://www.cce.umn.edu/radiok/

I read the CMJ's Top 20 and then go to CDnow to listen to clips. I use CDnow's you-might-also-like features. I read other Top-whatever lists, and it doesn't usually provide anything useful, but you can't ever tell. I used to try to look at CDnow's New Releases, but I don't think it's as complete as it used to be, and it's hard to go through that much stuff, anyway.

Mostly, I see what my friends are listening to. (Anyone been longing for Ian Curtis to rise from the dead? Check out Interpol.) Oh, that and waiting a decade for Peter Gabriel's new album.

Sure there is.. I mean, it's the exact same thing the XML web interface does when you click on "insert" on a playlist/playitem..

Just gotta figure out the comman it uses (shouldn't be too hard.) and then figure out how to get a commadn running ON the player to feed it TO the player. After that, it's a really simple SLEEP call in C.

Me.

i use iTunes from Apple to rip cd´s (160bit) and listen to internet radio and iNet Stream Archiver to archive the internet streams mostly 128bit witch is o.k. sound.

>Anyone been longing for Ian Curtis to rise from the dead? Check out Interpol

Ooh interpol - thought I was reading the chameleons discussion forum for 'soundalikes' for a second ....

About the only radio I listen to is a saturday night 3-hour mix-up special; of course most of the music is unannounced so knowing the titles and artists is sometimes more difficult. But I buy a fair amount of new music by using the following methods:

* Following favourite artists and record labels. I find especially that some record labels consistently produce stuff that I like to hear. This I probably find is my main method of choosing new music.
* Buying compilations with artists I recognise.
* Listening to what other people are listening to.
* Looking through CDs at a store and taking them up to the listening booths.

That sort of covers it for me - I'd have a hard time exhausting those methods...

Have fun,

Paul

Like most of you, I dont listen to the radio much anymore either. I do listen to the Dallas Stars hockey games once in a while when not near a TV but thats about it.

When not in the car I listen to Internet radio a lot. Just about all the record labels have their own stations that play their artists.. Radio Free Virgin is a good one. They also play a lot of stuff before it becomes mainstream on corporate radio. There are also a lot of live feeds from radio stations from all over the world.. thats makes it nice to hear what is happening elsewhere.

But my main source of new music is from MP3.Com - a great site. Tons of music by tons of artisits and a lot of them make their music available for download, legal and free for those of you with morals. They also have the 'If you like this guy then you will want to check out these guys' recommendations as well. If you have not checked out MP3.Com then you are probably missing out.

I have been listening to Shoutcast stations at work during the day. I am usually found listening to Radio Paradise.. a eclectic rock station. They play a wide variety of good music. I have purchased numerous CD's after listening to this station...

well, i barely listen to the radio and if i do, i rarely hear anything new? movie soundtracks work great for me and the listening booths at record stores are cool too.

alot of the new music i listen to is from my ftp. people send me stuff to get stuff. its neeto.

I never really listened to radio anyway, even back in the days when I was broadcasting.

The best way to get new music is to hook up to new release mailing lists and the free promos the labels are throwing at you.
If you can't get hooked up to the labels/distibutors,
just be friendly to your favourite DJ and he will keep you posted.

After all it's still the clubs/DJs that are pushing new releases....

I usually go through the Record Label's websites to see what's new - and not the big companies either. Labels like Inside Out, Metal Blade, Magna Carta, Century Media, Ipecac, RoadRunner, etc. Also, try listening to the online radio stations of your favorite genre...

I scroll through the 10000's of songs posted to 10 of the largest .mp3 News Groups. I just download stuff that looks interesting: old stuff, disco, metal, classical, new dance tunes, D&B whatever tickles my fancy. If I really like it I'll go out and get more of it either P2P or a trip to the record store. I'm picky about my P2P stuff though; 192 or better at least.

After sorting through my NG downloads I listen to each song briefly to see if it's worth keeping. After I've pared it down to 'good' stuff, I check tags (retagging most files) and then onto the empeg it goes.

Needless to say this takes a while, but I've got lots of things I wouldn't found otherwise, including a lot of one-hit wonders.

I have a probationary playlist so I can mark songs that need more attention - either for tags or s**t-canning.


-Zeke

JJJ

The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has a youth network which I'm addicted to. It has a pretty good array of music and being government run, doesn't have ads or sell out to teeny pop culture.

I get most of my music recommendations there.

Heard The Vines' new album and picked up their single for AU$2.50!!

For some reason, the Targets around here were selling that whole album for $6.00 US for a while. Too bad that the rest of the album isn't as good as that single. It doesn't suck, though.

Find a community of people that are sorta into the same music. For me it's excellentonline.com (PLUG, it was just a mailing list before I came along and made the website). There's about 300 people there that buy all kinds of weird Indie/Brit/Electronic music and then post about it. I usually read about bands there a couple of months before other magazines like NME (nme.com) pick it up. There's also community ftp sites where people will upload MP3's and since they're all into the same music I can check out a lot of new stuff that I like before buying it (without the hassle of hunting it down on the P2P networks).

later,
ajay

"and listen to internet radio and iNet Stream Archiver to archive the internet streams mostly 128bit witch is o.k. sound."

any software for windows xp that can do this?

thanks

eddie

I get recommendations from friends online and in real life - I know people into similar music and recommendations just propagate! I also get a few recommendations by hearing songs in clubs, but that isn't as frequent.

What style of new music are you looking for, maybe people here can recommend you some!

Like other folks here, I don't really listen to the radio any more either. However, most of the artists I like died years ago (I'm into 30's and 40's jazz music). I "discover" old music mostly by poking through Amazon and seeing what's available from any given artist, although I've started playing with eMusic.com, which finally has a reasonable selection of jazz music. Now, I can start by searching for an artist that I like, see what record labels they've recorded with, then look at everything available from the label. For the smaller independent labels (e.g., Concord Jazz), you can do very well this way.

For discovering new (i.e., living) artists, as well as older artists that I haven't heard of before, I mostly rely on a combination of things.

- Live acts. When I travel, I hook up with the local swing dancers, and they'll often have local bands playing for their dances. If I like what I hear, I buy the CD.

- Other DJs. Every local swing dance scene has local DJs. If they play something I like, I go ask them what they're playing. I've picked up some awesome and obscure cuts this way.

- TV shows. One of my favorite shows was/is Sessions at West 54th Street. They only had three seasons, but they got some fantastic bands. It's currently airing on Trio. There are some other music-themed shows out there like the BET Sunday Jazz Brunch, Musicians (Bravo, I think), and so forth. The "hit rate" on getting something you like isn't very high, but these things are still better than nothing.

(And, for saving the audio bits from the TV, I run the S/PDIF output of my TiVo into my sound card, snarf the bits directly, and run them through lame...)

There are only two words you need to know regarding finding new music:

College Radio

Yeah, I know, "since empeg, we all have forgotten about radio." Since I've been stuck with cassette and radio for the last 7 years (since I started driving), I've grown quite fond of the radio (hence my double-din empeg + cd/radio install (coming in three days!!)).

So, yes, college radio. It's the closest thing to the empeg you can get without buying a small record store. College radio often has no commercials, infrequent interruptions from announcers/DJ's, and is chocked full of music that you've probably never heard before. I have yet to hear a college radio station play ANY "Top 40" or, for that matter, anything from a major record label (excluding Classical, Jazz, and Motown/Soul programming).

Best of all, when you hear a song you like, just grab your cell phone and call the bored college-aged DJ who's serving it up. They should be able to give you all the info you need to know in order to get the music. Works for me; my "CDs To Get" list is huge.

The downsides are that this indie music (be it Rock, Punk, Techno, Folk, or anything else) is generally hard to find in stores etc. Worse yet, you most likely can not find it in MP3 on the internet.

The upsides are that when you DO find the CD's, they are generally dirt cheap. Buying one often helps lead you to other albums on the record label (plug: check out Dischord for punk and Nettwerk for techno).

Oh, and about downloading indie songs off the internet, wouldn't you rather support quality, talented indie musicians who aren't sell outs? Yeah, I think the indie folks deserve it.

I go to bookstores. Barnes & Noble in particular have a new system where they store all the tracks from every cd they sell in some kind of database. Not only that, they have all the song titles and album data, including album covers. You can search by various categories, and once selected you can sit and listen. The best part is you can pick up CDs from the store and barcode scan it at the listening station and preview the tracks to see if its any good before purchasing. :-D It rocks!

Calvin

i live in la also

http://www.kcrw.com/music/

i always liked their morning becomes eclectic shows. they got streaming internet feeds also and pretty groovy dj sets.

I'll also say that radio's not quite dead yet -- you just have to look to the noncommercial, left-end-of-the-dial.

I've found a remarkable amount of "new" music by listening to Austin's NPR affiliate, KUT -- especially the morning show Eklektikos, which airs from 9am-1pm CT. (Their website offers streams if you'd like to check it out; click the "Listen" tab.)

Does anyone have experience with MusicMatch's Radio MX?

I've tried the service with the default low-quality setting (and indeed, it does sound crap...) but the nice thing is that you do get to hear bands/artistswithin the genres I like that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

It has this great feature whereby you can type in the name of 5 bands/artists and this will generate a personalised music stream around those aritists and from other artists in the same genre. If you don't like what you hear, you can skip to the next track.

I'm still on an analogue telephone line, once I have broadband I want to give it a try (at $40 a year, it doesn't break the bank), unless warned against it!

Cas.

Sorry to take this off-topic, but your post makes me snigger like an adolescent.

The word KUT in Dutch is the rude refferal to a woman's genitals (pretty much identical to English's "-U-T"; fill in the blanks).

Although widely used in daily speech as a curse or to vent abuse it's still considered to be very rude.

I'm sure you were dying to know !

The word KUT in Dutch

I believe a turntablist called DJ Ruff Kut found this out to his considerable disadvantage the first time he played a gig in Holland...

Peter

I used to use musicmatch and kind of liked it. I switched over to launch.com, which is now launch.yahoo.com. it was good until yahoo got a hold of it, and reduced the quality and added commercials. If you're piping through a stereo, anything less that 100kb is painful in my opinion.

i like knac.com, but can only take the heavy duty stuff for an hour or so at a time.

-t

The word KUT in Dutch...

FWIW, Cas_O: the radio station (always) pronounces it "Kay-You-Tee". But who's not to snigger at a good double-entendre?

ROFL, I can imagine!

Does anyone have experience with MusicMatch's Radio MX?

I suppose I might be biased, since I work at MusicMatch...but...

I really like Radio MX. I happen to be primary QA person for it, so I listen to it almost all day. That's pretty much the exclusive place where I learn about new music. And, I've found a LOT of great bands through the service.

It's programmed similar to a real radio station, with new adds, heavy rotation, gold hits, etc. The people that program all the stations are very knowledgeable in the particular field and do an awesome job with them. For example, the Dance Club station is programmed by a popular rave DJ. I happen to program the Movie Scores station (which I love).

As for Artist Match, we have an amazing recommendation engine which associates artists with similar artists. It's not as accurate on lesser known artists since we may not have enough play data to equate that artist with others, but this is only for a small percent of artists.

Hope I don't sound like an ad or something. I really do like our service and think it's worth it.

Anyone been longing for Ian Curtis to rise from the dead? Check out Interpol.

Oooh, good spot. What with those guys and Crystal Method, that's two really good bands I'd never have heard of except for this BBS.

Peter

mostly I don't get 'new' music... mainstream sux green goat cheese, and I even haven't finished ripping all my CD collection yet.

I have bought 4!! cds this year so far:

- that shakira cd
- the new springsteen album
- a sampler of scifi themes including stuff like the 2001 theme
- U2: under a blood red sky (because I am way to lazy to hook up something worthwile to rip decent quality from vinyl).

in the rare case that there actually IS nomething new that I care to have closer to my ears than, say, the distance earth<->moon I can always find somebody who has bought the latest sampler and rip the track.

who needs britney or brosis, anyways?

bye,
[L]

If you like sci-fi themes, I highly recommend the 4-disc set called "Sci-fi's Greatest Hits". It's put out by the Sci-Fi channel and includes all original material. I used numerous pieces for my Movie Scores station.

Here's a link to Vol. 1. You can get to the other three from there:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000G4T3/002-8211614-7448803

Hey, thanks for the word about Radio Paradise, I've now been finding myself listening to it a log...Any station that plays Big Head Todd and the Monsters is a good station in my book

I agree.. The station does rock with no commercials and like NPR, the announcer only comes on occasional to beg but at least it is unobtrusive.

Instead of downloading music, now I just walk into a store and rob the place at gunpoint, because it's okay to steal music now, right? lol

Actually I just ripped my entire collection of CD's onto my empeg, tagged them, then erased the songs I never listen to. I don't really download music alot anymore, so I'd say I just borrow a friend's cd if I really want to listen to a new song or I'll download it. Unfortunately I listen to alot of Sportstalk radio here in Dallas (the Ticket) and I don't really hear that much new music (My god I am turning into an old person!)

Oh well, I also listen to this thing they have Saturday nights from 9 or 10 pm to like 2 am where it's all a live mix from a night club here in dallas. Most of the time I have no idea who it is and it's different every week so i don't pay too much attention.