FINDING MUSIC WITH A LITTLE LESS BIG TECH

If you’re not on social media, it might be hard to keep up with the latest music. And if you don’t use the big streaming services (maybe you’ve ditched Spotify), it’s even harder to know about new releases.

Now, I’ve been neck deep in music since the mid 90s. I started a music blog in 2001, and was the founding editor of Noise Creep at AOL Music back in 2008. I work for a record label and music publicist these days, too. But for me I don’t follow one source, or any sort of news outlets for new music, but rather a combination of the following:

1. Follow music writers, instead of the big music outlets. Back in the early days of Twitter my friend followed the NY Mets beat writers instead of the actual NY Mets account. Following the people listening, writing, living and breathing the thing everyday – those are the people you want to connect with. Gabbie writes New Bands for Old Heads. Kevin Alexander writes On Repeat Records.
2. Listen to the radio. Joi runs The Radio Room. Find radio stations around the world with Radio Garden. I discovered this French radio station called FIP from a virtual co-working call awhile back. Look up some local college radio stations in your area – most have live streams from their websites.
3. Tons of DJ sets on NTS, Rinse.fm, Boiler Room, SoundCloud (their Daily Drops playlists are great), and HOR Berlin (there are a million like these).
4. Go to Bandcamp – see that scrolling list of releases? Click on one and hit play, I dare you. Then start diving into some of the genres via the Discover page, which is how I found the release below. You can also try Subvert.

Streaming platforms lured us with having everything all in one place. Resist the big tech lock-in and entrust a little bit of magic for your music discovery.