Dive into a world of creativity!
But like not everyone needs to be told that this song they like is about sex or murder or anything else that would ruin their view of the song, can we not do that. Like why does everyone have to analyze every lyric, why can't they just be allowed to enjoy a song. Sincerely, someone who had to help a panicking friend pick a new daddy daughter song for her wedding in two days because she's had a song picked for years, and a funny dance routine planned out before a bridesmaid told her she was weird for choosing a sex song to dance with her dad too.
Don't be a musical elitist Asshole!
i find today's internet-music-discovery landscape super interesting so i'd like to weigh in with some "casual" observations. as a teen growing up in the late aughts, my musical diet was fueled by two primary sources: myspace music and last.fm.
myspace was huge for small artists back in the day. arguably the beginning of "bedroom pop" as a concept, artists like Owl City found traction through posting songs on this new social media platform which had its own music player and allowed html customization. developing an artist brand was pretty accessible to anyone with a mic, DAW, and basic coding knowledge.
before the streaming age officially started, last.fm among other similar sites, soft-launched the concept with "scrobbling." it's a similar concept today to Spotify's "artist radio." i think at the time there wasn't precedent for copyright/publishing payouts for streaming songs on-demand, so you couldn't just pick a song you liked and listen. you had to shuffle. the benefit of this, for me, was that songs had a pretty hefty genre taxonomy, allowing me to make such discoveries as "the weird jangly guitar music i listened to is called 'math rock' and here are 20 songs i like in this genre." discovering different genres, music from different countries, this was a very exciting time to be a teenager interested in music.
these are the examples of internet music discovery i remember primarily, but it's important to remember that such platforms as the radio, iTunes charts, and MTV still had a pretty strong grip on driving consumer music tastes. music labels were incredibly relevant, but there was now a foot in the door for smaller artists to make a name online. at the time, the natural outcome for those smaller artists progress was to sign a record deal.
one of the most famous cases is probably Justin Bieber? i didn't really follow his rise at the time, but according to wikipedia, Scooter Braun of Taylor-Swift-Debaucle fame clicked a youtube video of Bieber's by mistake in 2007. His debut single One Time was released in 2009 under Island records and RBMG, both under Universal Music Group.
the big 3 major record labels in the west are Universal, Sony, and Warner. even today, virtually every top-charting artist on a given music streaming platform is distributing their music through one of these labels. if you're ever curious, Spotify has a "show credits" button if you right click any song. the "source" at the bottom will tell you the labels under which a song was released; Columbia, Republic, Interscope, Atlantic, and many more. Often you can google these and follow up the chain to the parent company, and more often than not it will be one of the big 3.
big labels have a lot of money for things like marketing singles and albums, booking big expensive concert venues, shooting fx-laden music videos on fancy sets, etc.
labels also have entire branches of people whose jobs are more or less to guarantee more visibility on platforms like Spotify. it's also advantageous for Spotify that the music that's already popular, mostly from these labels, lives in a visible space on their platform. they want to sell subscriptions and play ads because they have been hemmoraging money since day 1.
i think this is important to note before diving into the modern listening/discovery landscape.
so nowadays there are a lot of ways to discover new music. hell, there are a lot of ways to discover old music. let's talk about some of the important ones, as i see it.
at 350 million users, Spotify is the most popular music streaming service. you can find music charts to see the most popular songs, you can sort by genre, country, or make a "radio station" based off any artist or song. they also release tons of playlists curated by real human people (i think). that's a lot of ways to listen. i don't personally use spotify, but i do really love this site which shows a beautiful data cloud of genres sorted by closeness:
every noise at once - this site actually slaps so hard. unfortunately it will no longer be updating as the creator was fired from Spotify and lost access to the internal data that made the site possible. it still lives on as an amazing resource for "branching out" from artists you already listen to. the amount of data is very satisfying for my foraging-for-music-like-berries-ass brained self.
anyways, Spotify also curates "Fresh Finds" playlists, giving space to independent artists or artists on smaller independent labels. at a quick glance, the average listenership for these artists is ~100,000. personally, i think that's pretty cool and worth checking out if you like the idea of finding independent artists to support.
one can't talk about the modern music age without talking about TikTok. there is already a ton of TikTok discourse regarding music so i'll just say this: on a platform that is very good at categorizing and delivering content to niche interests, TikTok can be a really powerful tool for music artists who are Built Like That. dance trends, miniature music videos, production breakdowns, acoustic covers, remixes, sped up, slowed down; these things are all being mixed together in fascinating ways by artists and consumers alike. memes become songs and songs become memes. it's a fascinating little ecosystem. audio and video content are becoming synonymous in a very organic way and i think that's neat. as an added bonus, it seemed to confuse the hell out of label people, at least for a little while.
it's also incredibly volatile. any platform with a mysterious algorithm deserves a bit of scrutiny. anyone can blow up overnight, but not everyone can blow up overnight. for every viral hit that breaks containment, there are 10,000 more of equal artistic merit that don't. that being said, i've found a ton of artists there whose work i really enjoy and are building their own communities off the platform. as far as discovery goes, if you lean hard into engaging with the kinds of music you like on TikTok, it WILL show you similar music.
then there's youtube, another insanely huge platform. on the surface, youtube's music scene is pretty plain: if you look at the trending music videos, you'll see a mix of big pop names as well as kpop, latin artists, as well as what i lovingly refer to as the "Baby of the Month" (whichever new rapper has "Baby" in their name).
however, youtube also has a lot of unadvertised stuff going for it in the music world. tons of people curating playlists, DJ sets, and other interesting mixed media presentations of music you've probably never heard before. plus if you start watching a ton of those types of videos, i find the recommendations to only get better and better (i.e. weirder and more niche, which i prefer!)
it's also a great place to listen to video game or anime scores, as a lot of them never hit streaming platforms for reasons unknown to me.
one specific recommendation i have if you like dance music is Boiler Room. DJ sets are very efficient for finding new music. a DJ might play 20-40 songs in an hour depending on how wacky their set is.
there's also bandcamp, which is constantly emailing me new music. if you're into that, i recommend bandcamp!! also recommend if you like actually downloading the music you find. it's one of the best platforms to actually support an independent artist you like as well! shameless plug here btw
ok so maybe i lied when i said this would be a casual observation. sue me.
anyways, some platforms are built more fair than others and they all have their own biases. i personally recommend using as many platforms as possible to discover new music, and lean hard into engaging with the music you like there.
for better and for worse, these platforms are already digesting your usage habits. at least use that to your advantage. search for weird genres on youtube. if that random tiktok singer has a discord, join it and ask for reccs. tailor every algorithm to serve you the craziest newest shit you've never heard. confuse the hell out of these platforms until they finally deliver something you like.
maybe that's not the most satisfying conclusion. if anyone is looking for new music to listen to, it takes a decent amount of time and effort.
finally, this is, of course, all my opinion and please take it with a grain of salt. i'm probably wrong in a few spots, i worked a 9 hour overnight shift and decided to go on a huge rampage regarding this subject, which i'm super passionate about!! i am no gatekeeper nor arbiter of enjoying or finding music. there is no objectively correct way to enjoy music or to find it. in fact, if anyone has their own favorite ways to discover new music, i'm all ears!!!
I decided to listen to "the hits/popular songs" radio station for a bit and while I do love The Weeknd's Blinding Lights I was a bit disappointed at some of the new songs I had only heard through it.
Like this is what music is these days? Catch me listening to all the previous albums I have purchased on iTunes.