How to Expand My Music Taste

[annedauphine 35,917]

My go to method is finding playlists whose names and genres I like on Spotify, saving the songs of it in a playlist I created myself, cutting said playlist in batch of 100 or 50 and methodically going through them, deleting the ones I don't like from the playlist and saving in appropriate genre playlists the ones I like. But that's not for everyone lol. I tend to listen by genre.

[Tropico Angel 2,100]

Since I don’t have Spotify or anything like that, I find new music in a few different ways. 

 

I find a lot of my music through Instagram by following people with a similar taste to me or looking through edits. I also like searching a song I already know and like on YouTube and then looking at the recommendations. If I like a specific genre, I search for music books and look at the song list. For example, I love rock music so I always look at greatest rock hits piano solo books on Amazon and see the songs they include. From there, I dive into the artists discography on YouTube and then circle back to looking at recommendations.

 

Also following music accounts on YouTube that share eclectic songs from all different genres and time periods such as adventures in sound. I don’t like a lot of the things they share because there’s such a massive range but there are absolute gems in there - you just have to filter through them

Spoiler

Link to channel

 

 

[bluechemtrails 26,777]

Another option would be to follow popular playlists on Spotify that are updated regularly. The Lorem playlist, for example, even has it's own podcast Lorem Life (today with guest Ethel Cain, starting in two hours).

[YourGirl666 13,251]

So... what has been working for me is blocking my favorite artists and only listening to them when I really miss one specific song. I also keep a playlist of new discoveries that I listen to all through the week and then delete and create another one with some of my favorite songs from the previous week + new recommended music that I really like.

[maysparkle 2,419]

On 5/30/2022 at 12:36 AM, bluechemtrails said:

Here is my strategy for discovering music:

• listening to "song radios" on Spotify (which are songs by similar artists to your favorite songs) or song recommendations on Youtube
• normal radio listening (as simple as it is), I also found an Internet radio that only plays music requests from users, which is very interesting
• I have an account on RadioTunes which has many channels for different music tastes
• watching for new releases at https://www.albumoftheyear.org/ , Must Hear Albums and albums that have a good user score (there's also rateyourmusic.com )
• and finally, watching for threads of other artists on Lanaboards 👀

Totally agree with all these points and what others have shared. I recently discovered Ethel Cain through Lanaboards a month ago and haven’t looked back. A lot of my favorite artists have recommended other artists as inspirations, and then I look at their inspirations, and it keeps going. Some of my irl friends have great music taste. Even my boyfriend lol. Random playlists on Spotify, movie soundtracks. My parents. A teacher in a music class I took. Oddly, Facebook groups (I love the yacht rock group). You can find good music anywhere, it mostly takes patience and having an open ear  have some fun with it.

[bluechemtrails 26,777]

https://www.chosic.com/playlist-generator/

you can choose e.g. songs, artists or playlists

[Beautiful Loser 48,866]

I listen to the radio a lot, especially this semester since my schedule is so empty (= work at your stuff at you own pace). Every once in a while, they play a song I really like or catches my attention, and then I look it up to listen to it properly. If I like it enough, I check out more of their work (yay, Sam Fender's seventeen going under album!)

Sometimes I give in and listen to what youtube recommends me. It's 50-50. Once it recommended me a cool world music album though, I might've listened to it again if I could remember what it was.

Recently, I've checked out what Spotify recommends me to check out in that daily discovery playlist. It's not very good, but I've found one or two new songs from that.

But usually, it's a band or an artists name that keeps popping up and I kinda remind myself to check them out - which is usually years later because I'm lazy lmao. It took me until last year to listen to Arctic Monkeys despite hearing about them a lot when their big hit with AM came out. And it took me surely over ten years to remember that I liked the sound of MIA's paper planes when I was a kid and decided to look her up. I like her work but I just can't with the 5G conspiracy theorie tweets so I'm over her.
Similarily, sometimes I check out artists my (online) friends are really hyping up.

Create your own playlist to set a mood and you'll surely discover new tracks. I may or may not have one called "put me in a princess dress and dump me in a ballroom" which is basically just pretty waltzes, aaaand I'm cringey and put together a playlist based on the character in my profile picture lmaooo. They're not songs I'd normally listen to, but I've overplayed them so much, I'm sure my spotify wrapped will be a messsss rip to Venice Bitch not being the top 1 song for the third year in a row

 

I don't know, stay curious, I guess? When you notice you're stuck listening to the same thing, try to break it if it's really bothering you. Maybe log into LB, see which artist's thread is newly updates, and check out their work?

[Pnin 573]

On 5/30/2022 at 3:34 AM, BlueINK said:

Tbh actively searching for new music never works for me. I usually just come across songs I really like by coincidence.

For example after watching Lost In Translation I listened to the soundtrack which includes Just Like Honey by The Jesus and Mary Chain and so that's how I started listening to their albums.

 

Maybe watching a movie to discover new music is a little weird but I can definitely say that movies I really like usually also have soundtracks I like. 

 

Something else you can try is searching for playlists of a certain genre. There's channels on youtube dedicated to genres, e.g. if you like shoegaze and dream pop, David Dean Burkhart is the perfect channel for you. That channel made me discover Men I Trust.

Yessss for TJ&MC love!! Also one of the best soundtracks of all time imo. 

[gyal 485]

my best advice would be to start with the most popular artists in every genre, until you get a feel for what you like about each sound.

after that look at playlists, youtube recommendations and even tiktoks - from there just start curating the music that you like into your library

looking through those you'll be able to find a lot of new and upcoming artists too, now I just check new releases 

 

i have so much music on my phone that I wouldn't say I get heavily invested in newer artists, but if i'm ever in the mood for that one random song that I saved I always know its there

if you find someone who's music you really like, maybe watch an interview or two and you might feel more inclined to play their music  

[bluechemtrails 26,777]

currently I'm going through the AOTY year-end-lists:

https://www.albumoftheyear.org/list/summary/2021/

for each album (whose genre I like) I look for songs with a user rating of 85 or more, more precisely 85 if it has at least 2000 ratings, 86 if it has at least 1000 ratings and so on.