New music discovery and me

Yesterday on Bluesky, Dan Donald asked: "How do you go about finding new music these days?"

I replied with what has been working for me recently, but since it's a topic I put some effort into over the last couple of years, I thought I'd spend a few minutes expanding on my current 'system' (if you can call it that) and talk about my sources for discovering new music.

I should preface this by mentioning that when I talk about 'new music' I invariably mean new albums. Despite the prevailing playlist-based culture pushing us in the opposite direction, I still think about releases in terms of complete albums, and I almost always listen to an album at a time rather than playlists or individual songs.

I should also mention that my tastes skew more indie and rock, and there are probably much better sources than these if you're into drum-and-bass or EDM, for example.

Old media

New releases come out on a Friday, at least here in the UK, so every Friday morning I check the Metacritic new album releases. It's not the most comprehensive list ever, but it generally includes anything remotely mainstream, plus it includes an aggregate review score – perhaps it's worth checking out something scoring over 90/100, even if it's not your usual cup of tea?

There are also a handful of independent(ish) review websites that cover the kind of music I tend to enjoy. Pitchfork (sadly soon to be merged into GQ) has a best new albums page, Under The Rader magazine covers a lot of lesser-known indie (and also has a great physical monthly edition), or if you're looking for something really obscure there's always The Quietus.

New media

On YouTube, Anthony Fantano's The Needle Drop channel is a great source for regular reviews across all genres, although he's particularly good for the more experimental end of rock, pop and hip-hop. I've found that you don't even need to watch the actual reviews if you're short on time – his "Loved List" playlist provides quick pointers to albums that usually deserve at least one listen.

If you use Spotify, they generate two personalised playlists that can also be great sources for new finds. The "Discover Weekly" list (updated every Monday) is usually comprised of older tracks, but occasionally something new will crop up on there; while the "Release Radar" list updates on Fridays and is solely comprised of new releases, both from artists you follow and those adjacent to them. Generally it will only be singles that show up on both lists, but that's often an indicator that a new album won't be far behind.

Since I only use Spotify, I don't know whether the other streaming providers like Apple, Tidal, YouTube and so on offer anything similar – I would imagine they probably do.

Social media

Finally, there are a couple of websites that aggregate public opinion. Both Rate Your Music (RYM) and Album of the Year (AOTY) maintain a top albums list for the current year; I tend to look through both every few weeks to see what has risen to the top and needs to be added to my "To Listen To" playlist.

RYM in particular tends to be a little more outré than many other sources, with a lot of varieties of extreme metal, field recordings/found music, free jazz and other extra-niche genres routinely appearing near the top of the charts (leading to the coining of a new genre, "RYM-core"), but since the genres are clearly listed it's easy to pick and choose to suit your own tastes.

I also add in anything mentioned by a handful of specific people on social media where I know my taste overlaps with theirs.

Outro

And that's my system. I add anything that looks like it might be interesting to the "To Listen To" list; anything that ticks all my boxes earns a promotion to the "Best of 202x" playlist. The latter set of lists now extend back to 2014, providing a nice reminder of what I was listening to over the previous decade.