Hey everyone! I'm bored right now and it's been a while since I last posted, so I'm doing this post just for fun. The title seems very vague, but I will have a lot to say about that title in this post. Let's get to it!
INTRODUCTION
Most of you reading this probably know what it's like to be a real music fanatic at this point. You listen to music all the time and love jamming out to your favorite songs and artists. But often times, you're stuck asking yourself this question: "How can I discover new music?" Well, in this post, I will not only give advice for discovering new music, but I will also talk about my own experiences and how I came to discover a lot of my favorite music, which can be an inspiration to everyone out there who is stuck on just what the heck you can listen to. And I've certainly been there, which should make me even more qualified to do this. So if you're unsure on methods of discovering new music and want some help, you're in the right place. Hopefully I don't screw up. So yeah, hope you enjoy.
MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCES WITH DISCOVERING NEW MUSIC
Okay, so I think starting this post off with some life stories that have to do with this topic should be good. But in case you don't know much about me, here's some background info: I've been a big music listener and fan for almost four years now, and it all started around May or June 2015 (I was about 11 at that time) when my friend would turn on my local top 40 radio station while we would play video games together. He knew all of the songs and would often sing along to them when they came on. During the time when he was visiting (he lives 5 or 6 hours away from me so he stays for a few days when he visits), I got more and more attached to this pop radio, probably just because I had never heard a station like that before (when I was younger, my Christian mom only let me listen to the Christian stations probably because she didn't want me hearing a lot of the stuff on pop radio). After he left, I would spend pretty much all of my spare time listening to my local pop station and also things like the American Top 40 station, and it didn't take me long to discover Spotify from there. Being able to pick what songs I could listen to was like heaven for me, and I just spent even more time listening to the songs I liked from the radio on that. But when I realized how much music was out there was when I first took up the music discovering processes I sometimes use today.
Strangely enough, I didn't think too much to use the Internet when wanting to find new music to listen to, so I just went off on my own trying to find my new favorite songs and artists. I found out that I had to know what forms and genres I wanted to discover. The first thing I thought to find was rap music because it seemed that was what everyone at my school was listening to (this was around the beginning of my 6th grade year), and I thought it may be cool to try to take up rapping myself. I had heard before about big-name rap artists like Eminem and Drake, so it didn't take long for me to find a lot of songs from people like them that I loved. Following that was a short new pop music phase, and then my trap phase hit me hard. I certainly regret having that phase due to me thinking of my 13-year-old self as screwed up because of it, but one thing I did get out of it was music discovering methods. I knew what artists and genres I liked, so I just used Spotify to know what songs and artists from those genres were trending. I would find an artist that was supposedly similar to my faves or just trending in the trap world, so I just listened to a song or two from them, and that worked out perfectly. I still do that a lot to this day; in fact, I just did last night with some artists I knew were similar to my current rotation. It may seem risky, but I promise it does work.
Now let's go back to the summer of 2017, which was smack dab in the middle of my stupid teenager trap phase. I was encouraged to do an online game involving the 100 most popular songs of the 2000s, according to Billboard. I had to get familiar with all 100 songs, and then rank them from favorite to least favorite. But forget the ranking part. I didn't get crap out of that. I did get crap out of indulging myself in these songs. It was my first time in a pretty long while getting exposed to music that I wasn't used to hearing, and in this case, real music. There were some rap songs I got attached to, but there was also pop, rock, and even a little bit of country. I was getting attached to a lot of the rock stuff the most, and for once in my life I felt comfortable listening to that stuff around trap fans in school (by this point I had just started 8th grade). I did get that feeling out of doing this, but I also got a new music discovering tool for my tool box: Listening through charts or lists of successful songs.
Flash-forward to about a year later, which was actually last September. I had started high school at a pretty different school without all those unintelligent trap fans. I knew that that was my chance to really go where I wanted to go with music discovering. So I started a campaign where I would listen to the top 25 songs of every alternative chart from the previous year (2017) to 1999 (except I listened to the full '99 chart for another ranking game). I would put all of the songs I listened to in a playlist that I would then pick favorites out of. (And if you're wondering why I chose alternative, it's because I thought it would sound really good on my new headphones) I kind of look back at it now as a small failure, but it did lead me to discover many great bands from doing it, including Foo Fighters, Incubus, The Offspring, A Perfect Circle, and (cue the booing) Limp Bizkit. I don't think I'd use that exact method of discovering just because it didn't do as much as I wanted it to for me, but it did lead me to another common discovering method: Listening to albums.
I had never been much of an album person before this time. Unless it was one I had already listened to 20 times somehow, I usually got really bored when listening to them. But that changed one day towards the end of last September. I was really into listening to a then-strange band called The Offspring for some reason. They had quite a few songs I liked that I discovered through the chart-listening thing I did. Three of them, which were "Pretty Fly (For a White Guy)", "The Kids Aren't Alright", and "Why Don't You Get a Job?" came off of one supposedly good album called Americana. I thought, "Hey, why don't I try listening to this? It shouldn't be too boring considering how upbeat a couple of these songs are." So I did. And it seemed to be pretty enjoyable for me, so I went on to another one that had the jam "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" on it. It was called Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace. I didn't think it stood out as much as Americana, but I liked it as well, and even decided to add "Hammerhead" from it to my rock playlist. That Offspring binge kicked off a whole album phase for me that lasted way longer than I thought it would. I listened to entire discographies of artists I had already loved and discovered from the previous method, though the immediate effects only brought four songs for my playlist: "Monkey Wrench" from the Foo Fighters' The Colour and the Shape, "Bullets" from Creed's Weathered, "Riot" from Three Days Grace's One-X, and another Offspring song called "Original Prankster". I did get my huge and powerful love for The Offspring out of doing that, but when I realized I could listen to a lot of these albums on my own time, it gave me albums for that, too. So nowadays when I find myself enjoying hour-long albums from Avenged Sevenfold, I thank myself from that time for stepping out of my comfort zone to discover more.
You'd think doing all of that would cook up a big storm, but I think I was wrong. That winter, my music discovering journey seemed to hit a dead end. I had just listened to whole alternative charts that gave me a love for bands like Godsmack, Papa Roach, Breaking Benjamin, Korn, Disturbed, and Shinedown, but by the end of that month I had no motivation or direction for getting more listening music in my arsenal. I took to music servers on Discord for advice. The first piece I got was to take what Spotify gives you. That made sense to me, because after all Spotify does make a huge effort in recommending you music they think you'll like. They have this playlist called Discover Weekly that they update every week with 30 songs they think you'll like, and this dude told me it was "flames" and that it was good for discovering music. And looking back, I do not regret taking his advice. I don't listen to it as much as I used to, but it does give me a great song or two when I need one. It is good for getting into new artists as well. And that pretty much takes us to the present day, where I am just a 15-year-old rock-head who is always finding great new rock songs and bands to listen to. I know this section was pretty long, but we're getting to the fun part, trust me.
HOW TO DISCOVER?
So all of me talking about how I discovered a lot of my favorite music comes down to this question: How can any average music can discover music that they will like and want to listen to? Well, the following paragraphs should be packed with discovering methods and advice for finding stuff you like. I will try not to include methods that I have not tried or have not gotten much out of, so all of these should work for at least someone. It doesn't matter which one(s) you start with, just whatever works for you I guess. So here is the general advice and some methods that should work for you.
GENERAL ADVICE FOR DISCOVERING
1. Know what you want to discover. Not knowing what kind of music you want to discover is like driving to a place you've never been to or seen without a map or GPS: It's really hard and will probably take a while to find the place. It works the same way with discovering new music. If you don't know what you want to discover, you're going to have a very hard time getting progress. Just knowing what genre you like or want to get into is a good start. But knowing what type of charts or what era of music you want to know also works. Just have at least a little bit of a game plan. You don't need too much.
2. Don't be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone. If I didn't do this, then I would still be that annoying trap teenager I was 2 years ago. It feels weird at first, but it won't be long before it does become part of your comfort zone. If there's something you think you may like but you don't know if you will, please do not hesitate.
3. It's good to discover, but don't over-discover. I actually made this mistake right after I started listening to stuff Spotify recommended to me. As a result, I couldn't keep up with everything I had discovered and added to my playlists that I pretty much had to listen to playlists with a bunch of songs I'm not too familiar with, which often times isn't good for me. I had to take a long break from discovering music after that, which wasn't too fun. So please watch yourself and try not to make this mistake.
4. Take what your streaming service gives you. I already mentioned this one, but this does help. Spotify is a great service that has personalized mixes and playlists, but lots of services have top songs playlists for many eras and genres that can be very good for someone who is looking for new stuff to listen to. If you don't take advantage of this, then you're missing out.
5. Music and reviewing websites can be your friend. When you see a critic or general person mention that a certain song, album, or artist is good, they are likely not wrong. Even YouTube videos are good for this type of thing because they play samples of these songs right in front of you. Also, along with this, try not to listen to negativity that comes from critics and websites. You don't need to prevent yourself from listening to things because critics say they suck.
EFFECTIVE METHODS FOR DISCOVERING MUSIC
1. Listen through charts of genres and eras you like or want to discover. This helped me a lot in getting more into rock music and I plan to do this with more active rock charts this summer. Just try to actively listen to whatever song comes up, and if you like it, save it to your library or add it to your playlist so you can keep listening to it.
2. Listen to albums. It may seem boring since a lot of albums can be boring, but you will quickly get used to it. Have a few go-to albums that you can queue up and listen to at any time. What albums you listen to don't matter as long as you think you may enjoy them enough that you can listen to them any time.
3. Use streaming services and recommendation sites to your advantage. I talked about this in number four of the last list, but taking what your streaming service gives you is a great way to find something new to listen to. And I mentioned music reviewing websites right after that. Another thing is to use websites like last.fm that give you recommendations based on what you listen to. It's a really cool site that I really enjoy using. You can look at my profile here if you wish.
4. What I like to call the "just because" method. This is when you pick out an artist or a song you have heard is similar to stuff you like, and you queue a lot of different things up just because. I have discovered lots of my favorite songs and artists over the years from doing this, and that's because it really does work. For example, if you wanted to try getting into post-grunge, you would go find out some of the most influential post-grunge artists, and just pick out a couple songs from each of them to listen to. And you can find what you like and go from there. It also helps with stepping out of your comfort zone, which makes it an all-around good way to find good music.
5. YouTube videos! By this, I mean videos that show charts or genre-specific songs and play 10-15 second samples of them. When I do this, I have my phone right in front of me ready to search up a song to save if I like what I heard from it. It is quick and it is effective, as these videos are not hard to find.
6. Listen to the radio. After all, that is how I came to be a music fan. Your city probably has radio stations for pretty much any genre, and you can discover lots of great stuff from there. The Music Choice channels you get from cable TV work as well.
7. Ask other people. Whether in real life or over the Internet, other people can be a great source of great new music. A good option is to find someone who has a similar taste to you, or join an online community of people who are a lot like you. These people will more than likely know at least a great song or two that you don't know, and by using them you can quickly get a bunch of new songs for your playlist. What I like to do is trade recommendations with people, which means I give them a song or album recommendation that I think they'd like, and then I ask them to give me something in return, that way we're both benefiting from the process. This is also here to let you know that if you want to know more rock songs of any kind, then feel free to ask me and I can help you out.
TOO LONG? DIDN'T WANT TO READ?
Here's a summary of all I've said in this post: All music fans should love discovering new music, but often times we don't know how. But there are many different ways of doing this. You can listen through charts or albums, or be wise and take what your streaming service gives you. The "just because" method I previously explained also works out great, as well as asking other people, listening to the radio, and watching YouTube videos with compilations of song samples in them. Some things to remember as you discover include knowing what you want to find, being open to trying new things and getting out of your comfort zone, and not overloading with stuff you're not as familiar with. If you ever hit a discovering rut and don't know how to get out of it, then just check back here for advice and you're good to go!
FINAL WORDS
And that brings this post to an end. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed making it. (And for the record, yes, I did enjoy making this) If you have any questions or want recommendations, then feel free to talk to me and ask me. You can comment here or use a site like Discord to talk. And if you have any recommendations for me, please share them because I am very open to listening to them. But that's all for now, and I'll see you all next time! Have a great life! :D
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