Where do you get your music/music information?
 

Most people on this site seem to be pitchfork junkies or get new music from friends/relatives. So other than PF and MB where do you get your new music and music information?


I've used SPIN magazine for a while, but I think that their album reviews are pretty ****ed over all so I dropped my subscription.

I wish there was a good way to search for this type of thread, because I know I've seen the topic more than once already.

I knew this comment was coming. I use advanced search every time that I post a thread and there always seems to be a thread that already exists bout the topic I'm posting about. Makes me look foolish...getting old.

I mostly get it from seeing artists similar and checking them out too. Or friends. Or hearing it and being like "OMG, who is that?! :D:D"

Last Fm and MB have been serving me quite well lately.

Before that, it was asking other people for mixtapes and searching music review sites like metacritic and Q.

Well like I said, there isn't really a good way to search for this topic as I can't figure out what word/phrase I would use (other than "where" which is too common a word for the search). So I was cutting you some slack and just putting the message out there in case someone could find said previous thread.

Blogspots and YouTube. If I wanted something along the lines of Arms & Sleepers I would Google "Arms & Sleepers Blogspot", and then there would be a good chance that me and the person who started the blog have similar tastes. If on YouTube I would look up a song by Arms & Sleepers and go through related videos and such. It does me well.

I wouldn't worry about this one. I have a feeling there IS a thread or two like this already but it's a tricky one to search for. I just tried and a few different keywords and I can't find one. If any of the other mods can find them, they will merge the threads together.

Anyway, i tend only use this site and Last.fm 90% of the time. I have a few mates who have good, varied, tastes in music and so sometimes i get into some stuff through them. I use Rate Your Music from time to time, mainly when easing myself into a genre I am not familiar with. If i find a good blog that I have gotten a few good albums from then i bookmark it and might raid it occasionally.

I can't really think of anything else. I used to visit the odd music-related site (ie DiS and a few others) and in the past I have been known to buy music magazines but I don't do any of that anymore.

EDIT: Oh and sometimes i look up a genre on Wikipedia, pull a list of artists and just pick random bands from it. I dont know if anyone else does this?

Last.fm is excellent for recs.

I don't even use LastFM's rec feature. I just look at what other people with Super Compatibility are listening to, what their top artists are, etc

Most of the time I pick up on things from various forums (such as this one), sometimes through last.fm, sometimes through label associations, sometimes through review sites (though I don't follow any), sometimes through blogs that seem appealing (not currently keeping up with any, though), sometimes through Amazon (people who baught this also baught this...) and similar features on other sites, sometimes things come out of nowhere and somehow catch my attention, and I'm left wondering how it happened.

All this results in a SERIOUS influx of new music at all times and a constantly growing list of things I need to check out. My Amazon wishlist is 26 pages long and I'm pretty sure I've stripped out all things I've already downloaded (and moved everything I want to purchase on CD to another list).

I mainly just use this forum and Youtube. Sometimes my friends, but rarely.

I'll look for bands that play in a genre similar to my tastes. I try my best to hear as many of the "core" bands of each of my favorite genres. I always check their wiki page, find AMG's highest rated album, and listen to a couple of singles on youtube...

I've found Allmusic to be a great info source as far as both finding new bands and things I hadn't heard by bands I already liked.

Other than that, all the usual suspects--here, magazines (metacritic, Pitchfork, etc), friends, all that good stuff.

I belong to another music forum that has a music sharing subforum where people upload albums and do massive send offs to anyone on the list. I've found some really good artists through that site, but lately it has been a bit lacking. Besides that I use Last.fm to find similar artists, then Youtube to find if the artists are worth listening to. Sometimes I play what I like to call "Demonoid Fishing" where I go to Demonoid, type in a random word or phrase, and then download whatever hits come up. I've found some interesting music that way, but I reserve that game for when I'm bored. Finally there's also Rate Your Music, which is useful for finding good starting albums of bands I'm unfamiliar with, or just what's popular this year.

I get a lot of music through word of mouf after talking to other metal heads. I just write down the band and then check them out on myspace.
Otherwise I use pandora or I click on a bands top friends on their myspace page.
Recently I discovered, however, the glory of the magazine. I got a few free Decibel magazines at work and went through writing down every band that looked or sounded interesting, then went through the whole list on myspace starring the ones I liked. Then... torrent time!

I've also found a few new bands while lurking around on here.

Last.fm introduces me to new artists.
Wikipedia gives me the info.

Word of mouth. I have a few weird ways I discovered bands, though. I remember a few years ago finding Bad Brains because I was searching through the notable dates pages of Wikipedia and found under one date "H.R.'s (stands for Human Rights) birthday" and thought that was interesting so I read his Wikipedia page and decided to listen to the band.

I liked last.fm for a while but recently I've been noticing that what last.fm considers "similar" between bands, is often ridiculously not. At least not to me. I'm not sure how it works... whether it just compares tags or something, but it seems pretty flawed to say the least. But I may not be doing something right, as I haven't really dug into that site.

i dont buy a lot of sheetmusic unless i have to, i usually go to ultimate-guitar for guitar tabs, and for piano if i cant get the song by ear then i check youtube.

Well there are the "similar" artists, shown on artist pages, and then there are your actual recommendations, shown from the home page. The "similar" artists you see on an artist page are just artists that other people who listen to said artist also happen to listen to. That's the only connection...they're the top artists also listened to by fans of the artist whose profile you're looking at. Kind of silly, really. If you go to http://www.last.fm/home you will actually see your recommendations (skip the new release crap). I generally find them pretty good, even if it often recommends artists I'm already familiar with but just haven't listened to. And how would it know that I already know of them, really, if I haven't listened to them? Doesn't make it any less accurate IMO.

Pandora does a pretty good job and you can approve or disapprove of things which will allow it to adjust more and more to what you want.

Yeah but that implies actually listening to Pandora radio. Not getting recommendations based on music/albums you listen to on your own.

Hm... i mean... I don't see a huge difference because with last.fm you listen to your itunes and then it recommends things to you and then you listen to those things. In pandora you put in a band that you normally listen to and then it plays the bands it recommends right then and there for you and you can say, no i don't like this, and it will refine it's choices. I think it's just a different way of doing basically the same thing and depends on if you feel like being more passive or proactive in the actual choosing of which recommendations you want to listen to.
It's nice that you have the ability to tell pandora what recommendations you like and don't like.

Kind of comes down to whether you feel like listen to the "radio" at the time or not, I suppose, and if you want immediate recommendations, or if (like me) you prefer to go about your business listening to albums and get recommendations you can investigate on your own when time permits.

I've discovered heaps of bands through MB. Thats the main reason I joined, because i'll admit im a music n00b and want to know more.

Last.fm is really good too, if i've discovered one band i really like and want to find similar bands.

I have this one other friend who loves discovering music as much as I do so we constantly share music.

When I like a band, I check out it's influences, and contemporaries. Randomly sifting through the internet and randomly taking suggestions.

I expose myself to the widest variety possible, and stick with what I like most.

I never EVER let the music media in any form effect me. I rarely read a music review unless I've already heard the album and made my judgment, and only out of curiosity.

Well mb is definitely a huge one for me. I've discovered so much of the music I love thanks to you guys :) Other than that, I hit up blogs, usually I'll search for an album and then end up looking through it. If there's a lot of good stuff I'll watch. Occassionally someone else that actually knows something about music will suggest an album to me. I love The Big Takeover, that's about the extent of my music media interaction. It's one of the few magazines not affected by all of this pitchfork hype too much. Pitchfork can be useful for news and I'll look at reviews once in a while but honestly 90% of the time they don't even really say anything worth reading about the music, it's just a number someone else attached to an album.

pretty much.

Usually last.fm, metal-archives.com, and Ishkur's electronic music guide is where I go.

encyclopaediametallum!

What is pitchfork?

or pitchforking

Encyclopedia Metallum is a quality website.
http://imgur.com/8O1ap.jpg

It's a website that reviews music, writes articles n stuff. hipster opinions most of the time. their editors love electronic music thats for damn sure...

I realized something while walking to lunch earlier. Oftentimes I pick up on band names from reading fan reviews. Someone might say a particular album reminds me of this or that band or album, that it's better in this way or that, or not as good, whatever. Of course when I'm reading these fan reviews it's either to help me decide if that album is something I want to bother getting or not, or sometimes it's after I've already listened to it and like it, I go back to see what people are saying. So it's nice to pick up names of other bands that way.

I am so stoked on everything about this :beer:

Oh i see... most likely, I shant be checking that out.

I just suddenly got this intense desire to be in the renaissance era when i said that. Omg please give me a time-machine that has it's own toilet and medical staff.

last.fm ;)

One of the things I have done in the past is creep on other peoples' Facebook profiles. I'll go to profiles of Facebook friends who appear to have good taste in music, take any bands I've never heard of, and youtube them. If I like what I hear, I get the music.

I've also become somewhat addicted to TasteKid.com, honestly. I get on there, type in a band or a few bands I've been in the mood to listen to, and it usually gives decent recommendations of other bands I might like, which I then proceed to check out on youtube. Again, I download 'em if I like what I hear.

I've also been known to check out bands artists I admire list in their influences or mention in interviews. A lot of the time, they're good for liking music that I turn out to be interested in. There have been a few exceptions (Trey Anastasio singing the praises of Paramore, for example) but mostly it's pretty dead on.

Finally, when I'm really hard up for new music, I go to music blogs (generally with a progressive, avant garde, electronic, and psychedelic emphasis lately) which post full albums, and check out the stuff that sounds interesting.

I had never even heard of Pitchfork before I came here. I've still never gone to their site. But I don't really follow modern music anyway.

For finding new stuff, I usually just read up on my favorite bands' influences or listen to stuff recommended by people who have similar tastes to mine.