and where do you listen to music (e.g. winamp, spotify, soundcloud, youtube, walkman)

i can't start the thread off with my own answer since i don't know where to consistently find new (good) music... other than bandcamp email notifications, and i mostly listen to the car radio which i want to change

i just type a genre into the search bar on youtube and then add "epic" before it

like, "epic jazz fusion"

bonus points if you ALSO add "remix" after it

then i click the first result and click on whatever videos in the sidebars look most obscure, and repeat until i've found something

Spotify has a 'discover weekly' thingy, and it will be pretty consistent.
Honestly, I find most of my music that I like by visiting record stores tho.

usually either friends recommend it to me or i go down a youtube related videos rabbit hole. sometimes people on rym also compile lists of specific types of music, e.g. japanese avant-garde, and i'll skim those looking for promising artists

i probably listen to roughly 65% local storage, 25% youtube, 10% bandcamp / soundcloud / other

edit: i've tried using bandcamp's "discover" feature but i can't think of a single good thing i found from it

find a new internet radio channel to tune into once in every while, search with a tag like fusion, jazz, rock, classical, etc
There's a fuckload of websites which lets you tune into those radios (there's also literally one called internet-radio (dot) com)

also Spotify is good as Robyn pointed out

I find a lot of music by going to local thrift stores and rummaging thru the CDs and Vinyl. I find a lot of terrible shite, but also many great albums by artists I had never heard of. Here's what I've found in the past few months. https://i.imgur.com/XuPyOo5.jpg

edit: If it's not physical then I use spotify and youtube topic channels which might only be available in the US but they have the highest quality renders.

Ten years ago, my answer to this question was "you guys," though there were a couple places I liked looking for things that I was into that weren't covered. It's basically true that your main source for new music is your peer group.

Otherwise, people tend to get sucked back to the first music they learned.

With the kids, not being able to listen at work, and my age in general, I don't get much time to just listen to music anymore. I know more examples of where *not* to find new music, such as

Terrestrial radio, except some forms of college radio, sometimes
Satellite radio, and any streaming service that divides into decades and such in similar ways
Bars and resorts that only have dad rock cover bands

If you're good at keeping up, it may also mean that you've managed to discover everything and just need to wait a while for more to be released. Maybe.

imho, from the best band ever:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz7eke4JGlbtc11_6mmA7ew

also i use foobar2000 with a handful of plugins that supports chiptune formats and others, i also use XMPlay a lot to listen to Module formats and super nintendo's SPCs with and aditional plugin

friends and family mainly. Occasionally ill look up vgm osts in the joshw archive using the zxtune app, but that's mainly because it doesnt require good mobile signal to dl such small files from the joshw archive - great for trains :)

youtube lol

If it's a hiphop/electronic style i'm looking for I'll find a 1-hour DJ mix or a genre curation channel to get a good spread of names, then when i hear a song I like i'll look for more by that same artist and if i keep liking what i hear I'll eventually buy an album or 2.
I used to use soundcloud to find music before soundcloud repeatedly and continuously shot themselves in the foot for like 5+ years straight and i tried Spotify but i couldn't stand the ads and didn't feel like paying so

Btw if you like oldschool 80s/90s hiphop i really recommend subscribing to VintageHipHopSeattle

, their choices are A++ and I've found a lot of new names to check out because of them

some youtube channels and record labels have a large catalog that i haven't gone through. for example, wellesz theatre/ wellesz company are youtube channels probably run by the same guy that uploaded hundreds of modern classical pieces. For genres i'm relatively new to, i'd just go through youtube recs/ look up "best of" lists.

作業用BGM

Excellent question. New (good) music? That's a lottery.

From time to time I get reminded of regional, cultural, and linguistical boundaries and frameworks that limit what I listen to. It's like I live under a rock without the ability to see farther than my nose.

I simple get and grow tired of repeting the same music on my playlist so I set myself to continue exploring intentionally and conciously.

I listen the advice of people I trust or admire.

For that I listen people's recommendation, specially if I consider them specialists in their field. If mootbooxle recommends Ennio Morricone or kfaraday listens to Macklemore I have to find out why that is so for two reasons:
a. I'm sure there was value in those artists' music that it was worth their time to be worth my time.
b. The artist probably inspired mootbooxle or kfaraday in a way that influenced their music. The artists probably helped shape who are they today musically as well. That's pretty important to me because they became great by practice, but also by having specific music role models to follow to and by getting inspired musically by them.

I listen botber's recommendations, if it isn't clear already. There was/is a reason they like certain artist. Chances are that ubiktune, hexawe or 8bp musicians share the same insterest that I have. So hello big data and ocean test for music, we'll probably like the same things.

I force myself to listen the platinum album sellers even when I found the music horrible. I couldn't understand how Heosphoros listened to Lady Gaga, he said she was a genious. There is/was a reason lady gaga sold so many albums. I gave in, started listening...Indeed, she's a genious at what she does, even when/if I "dislike" pop music. Also, it's like the saying, if so many people agree on something, and I don't agree...then I'm probably wrong on so many grounds. And I'm often wrong on very many grounds.

I change radio stations a lot "exploring" what's out there besides the genres I like (chiptunes, tech metal, metal in that order, and most often that not without lyrics)

I force myself to listen the cult classics of all genres, be it country, jazz, j-roku, even and specially when I don't get the lyrics. Those artists from cult classics and the big sellers were influenced by other musicians. I try to find out what they listened too, if I find them great and talented.

All genres have their own stars and cult classics.

Old music is a gold mine. The roots and where it all began.

I hardly use spotify, soundcloud, youtube for discovering music/talent/quality. The algorithms haven't hit good recommendations so I just avoid them. Actually youtube hits good recommendations, but I hardly have time to sit for youtube sessions..

I expose myself and I get compilations, eg "electropop compilation" and start exploring without knowing what to expect, genre by genre. I have a long way to go...

I use radio, if I know the songs by heart and know what to expect I just avoid that station. I make my own cds or plug a usb drive with my playlists. Sometimes radios is just enough.

I explore intentionally leaving my confort zone.
Good luck.


Off topic? forced myself to listen madonna...big mistake. I can't see her talent, the only record I liked from her it was her debut. That's from the big sellers.

I'd rather listen baron's counter cosby's band anyday. It's way more fun than madonna's music.
ps: definately the major chiptune collections like nsf, sap, spc, hsvc, the atari collection and so on, more curated than modland.
ps2: where do I play my music? xmplay, at home. on the go if time allows I use a portable usb player, like the sansa c200

xxx dot joshw dot info lol (the only xxx that matters)

foobar2000 on my phone and more often than not the discover on bandcamp

Pssh, the Arena.

Easy question.

i also wonder about this. i think my biggest issue is finding time to sit down and listen to new stuff. Youtube sometimes does suggest good stuff though completely out of left field like Ryo Fukui

pink bean

I watch animu openings. Really (well, animu music in general). Its chord progressions have some magic that makes such music highly dopaminergic.

My friend, the well-known squid Teuthida says it is because of "mode mixture". I seldom think in modes while listening or composing, but maybe he's right.

Before, I used to care about what was new in music to stay current with 'cool kids', but I don't anymore. New music mostly sucks, at least commercial/popular new music (there are some hidden gems now and then, though). That made me gravitate towards anime and video game music.

Other than that, I frequently listen to my local jazz radio station, though they broadcast jazz from all times, old and new. I also try to know what's new from my favorite bands (e.g. Dream theater, Stratovarius, Symphony X, Depeche Mode), even if they don't produce new material as often as "trending" artists .

For anime and vgm, YouTube is still my most frequent source.

I mostly look in The Upload on Soundcloud
Sometimes I find music in meme videos,
or games with fanbases



(and now that I have joined here, maybe I'll start listening to stuff here as well)

First I get interested in some specific musical tradition and go from it. Youtube is a primary source of new music for me now. When I listen to something cool I usually find works of an artist I like and just listen to all the stuff they used to make. After that I search for that artist's collaborators. This process never ends.

For a very long time good old russian vk dot com was a great source of cool music (why good old? nobody cared about piracy and there was just everything, ofc in worst quality possible but I don't complain, but now they just ban so much music it makes me sad - they even banned cricket sounds because of copyright lol). There still are many groups dedicated to various genres and styles (most notable E:/music, that's a core group of a huge continuum of music related groups) which are pretty cool.
Also I make some "5 handshake journeys" on soundcloud.

Also I listen to KSDS Jazz Radio (just awesome) when I feel really awful and it helps a lot. I got familiar with so many cool Jazz musicians and ensembles through it.

I mostly follow people that are followed by people I follow on soundcloud, and so on, until I can't keep up with my feed.
Pretty interesting that youtube is mentioned so much. I never thought of it as a place for discovering new stuff.

i do a lot of leg work to find it, and i check just about everywhere.
usually once a month or so ill spend a morning finding new music.

i almost feel like its too varied to describe. i might see a song linked on twitter, search the artist on youtube, see if they have an album out, check itunes for the album, check related albums, go back to youtube for the related artist, find a link to the artists' soundcloud, etc.

ive found an album on bandcamp and had to order a japanese itunes card to purchase it before. ive found an artist on soundcloud, checked out their website, went to the links section, and found a link to a band's webpage, who ended up being one of my favorite bands of all time.

there used to be a website called j-mp3.info that would upload scores of promotional albums every day and i would download anything with a weird, cute, ugly, or annoying cover. i found some of my favorite albums of all time that way. unfortunately its long gone, though im sure theres an analogue out there somewhere that im not invited to.

a good resource for me was the ototoy newsletter, they recommend some interesting stuff, but if you need to actually find the music it can be tough. ototoy's website is awful, i bought an album and ended up with a zip full of oggs labeled 'd626ufhey74.ogg' 'sh73;urudhsi.ogg' etc.

i would say youtube is the main thing, but since i love seeking out weird obscure stuff i will scrounge around almost anywhere. of course that doesnt stop me from just saying 'whats this new twice single everyone's talking about'

ive found the streaming music platforms to be mostly useless. im better off putting my own music on shuffle, as theres plenty of stuff i already have that i havent really given a decent amount of time to.

for playing, i have a sony boombox for cds and tapes (i also have a weird old answering machine for tapes). on pc i use itunes because a lot of my music was bought through the store, and i like to go through the recent purchases. i also use foobar for going through my collection or shuffling everything. i use winamp for the videogame stuff. on my phone im using a vlc player app. i can also stream over bandcamp if i want but i dont have a ton of stuff on there.

then there's the modules, friends' unreleased music, and on and on and on...