The primary way I find new music is through a custom program that I created myself.
It's a bit difficult to summarize what it does, but I'll take a shot at it: It takes a bunch of collated data on music listening trends from last.fm and distinguishes which songs are most commonly associated with each other, as opposed to being associated with any other songs. The end result is that every song is placed in a different "genre" full of associated songs.
Since the process is automated and scalable, I can tell it to make the genres as broad or narrow as I want, though the more narrow they are, the more arbitrary it might seem to the viewer of how two groups can really be considered distinct genres. Therefore, when I say "genre", it's more shorthand than it is a fully accurate description of what's happening (but it's close enough).
With that description out of the way, I'll now describe what I actually do with that program.
Although the main function of the program is to place songs into semi-arbitrary boxes, historically I've used the program more to broaden what music I listen to, rather than narrow it down.
What I've found from my own experiences is that if I focus on using the usual venues for finding new songs to listen to--radio, music compilations, music labels, website recommendations, related artists, random encounters in pop culture--then regardless of how varied the music feels to be, the reality is there's a great risk of limiting myself to one particular style or another. Years ago, though, I had my program map out the entire scope of music (that was locatable on last.fm). When I had a list of every type of music there was, it was easier for me to purposely jump from category to category and see what each one had to offer.
I did that for a long time, under the premise that every genre had songs worth listening to, it was just a case of having the patience to seek them out. My plan was to listen to literal hundreds of songs from each genre. However, through this process, I eventually had to own up to the fact that there are some genres out there that I just don't like. Even if they have individual songs that I would enjoy somewhere in there, the process of listening to everything was just too tedious, annoying, or otherwise stress-inducing. So I stopped.
But the program has still been useful to me to help me find new music when I'd feel stuck in using other methods... I just stick to stuff I'm a lot more likely to enjoy consistently. And to that point, I recently had the program define 200 genres in the realm of music I'm interested in, with the intention of picking 20 of those to listen to in more detail.
That's where I'm at right now. I'm still kinda in the process of sorting out which genres to listen to. I did a bit of a breakdown process that I think helped speed it up a lot, and I have a good starting base... but I have to admit that it feels a bit lopsided, and I'm rethinking a couple of the genres.
So here's what I've been thinking on today: Although I do think each of the genres is somewhat distinct, I still place them within somewhat broader categories. And I'm thinking through how to find the balance between reducing the lopsidedness of it while still being true to what I'm actually interested in listening to.
The broadest category I listen to is that incredibly vague realm of "indie pop" that follows a spectrum from rock to synth, though leaning more in favor of synth for my personal tastes. Here's some samples from the genres I currently have for that:
- Some kinda synthrock #1: TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me
- Some kinda synthrock #2: Two Door Cinema Club - Undercover Martyn
- Some kinda synthrock #3: We Have Band - Divisive
- Some kinda synthpop #1: flor - lmho
- Some kinda synthpop #2: Junior Boys - Over It
- Some kinda synthpop #3: Mylo - Drop the Pressure
- Drum & Bass: Lenzman - Open Page
- Some genre I'm probably going to drop: Mr. Belt & Wezol - Not Dancing
In addition to the above, I also have a set of more niche and easily-defined genres that I return to fairly frequently. I don't want as many of these, but I do want to make sure they're all represented. Here's the ones I've picked out so far with the help of my program:
- Funk/disco #1: The Brothers Johnson - I'll Be Good To You
- Funk/disco #2: The Whispers - And the Beat Goes On
- Funk/disco #3: Oliver Cheatham - Get Down Saturday Night
- '80s pop: The Style Council - Long Hot Summer
- Funk/disco that is also '80s pop: Yarbrough & Peoples - Don't Stop The Music
- Low-key electronica #1: Moomin - Fruits
- Low-key electronica #2: VentureX - Woman
- Low-key electronica #3: Brothertiger - You're Afraid
- Old-school hip-hop #1: Souls of Mischief - 93 'til Infinity
- Old-school hip-hop #2: People Under the Stairs - Montego Slay
And there's a couple of genres that are outside my usual wheelhouse, but I'm giving them a shot for reasons:
- Contemporary R&B: Snoh Aalegra - I want you around
- '90s women airing their grievances: Ani DiFranco - 32 Flavors
So... In particular, I'm feeling funk/disco might be a little over-represented while '80s pop is a bit under-represented. I was also hoping a little bit that I would be able to fit some goth rock in here to try it out some more, but it didn't end up happening and I'm not sure which of the original 200 genres best represents the kind of goth rock I'd actually enjoy.
I know there's a lot of the synth/rock/pop compared to the other stuff, but that's a category that's wide enough that the subcategories of it sound more distinct to me than, for example, the subcategories of funk/disco do. Or maybe my ear's just more tuned to pick out the differences in synthpop in general. Whatever the reason, I'm actually more inclined to add more synthpop genres than remove them... with the exception of the one mentioned earlier that I'm just not liking very much.
Anyway. I'm rambling a bit, I'll figure it out eventually. Just thought I'd provide some insight into the kind of thing that goes through my head when I'm finding new music to listen to, with some music recommendations to go along with it. And I also wanted to give a few more samples of the kinds of things I tend to listen to, since I haven't gone over that in much detail before now. These are just samples, though... eventually, I plan to post more officially curated playlists than this.
