Clearly if I were any less hip, my bum would fall off...

[wshaffer]

Sometime ago, I noticed that just about the only way I was getting exposed to new music any more was via fanvids on Youtube. While there's nothing per se wrong with that, I've been looking to broaden my musical exposure, because the fact of the music being used for fanvids imposes all kinds of filters that have nothing to do with musical quality. For example: Songs used for fanvids tend to be short, because people rarely have the stamina to make or watch 8 minute vids. And they're skewed towards love songs (or lust songs), because people like to make shippy vids.

So, a while back, in an effort to broaden my musical repertoire, I subscribed to the KEXP "Music That Matters" podcast. While it's provided me with many hours of perfectly pleasant background listening, and provided evidence for the hypothesis that neither hip hop nor country are completely evil as musical genres, I realized today that in about four months of listening, I haven't heard a single song that I actually wanted to buy. Or even had a particularly strong urge to go back and listen to again.

One possibility is that I'm actually no longer really interested in music unless it comes with video of time-travelling aliens or attractive men in Napoleonic uniform attached. More likely, though, is that this particular podcast (despite its amazing diversity of DJs and genres) just isn't holding my interest.

I suppose I'll go trolling around iTunes for some other "music anthology" type podcasts, but I'll pose the question to the friendslist: How do you go about finding new music that you like?

Comments

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Mainly, I get recced by a friend of mine whose taste in music is reasonably eclectic. (I have been turned on to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and Jonathan Coulton, by the same person.) I'm lazy like that. But yes, I've found that most supposedly tastemaking media are really dropping the ball on anything that's halfway good.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Otherwise (I should add), I'd been finding cool artists through (don't laugh) music from commercials. I'm seriously considering getting hold of Portishead's "Three", for instance.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Laugh? After I've admitted that I find music from YouTube vids?

This had made me realize that there are downsides to my having arranged my life so that I almost never see television commercials. Unless they're cool enough that they make it to YouTube.

Maybe I just need to spend more time on YouTube.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

If I were listening to music much these days at all, I'd probably sign up with one of those create-your-own-station Internet radio sites, and see if they're really as good as I've heard at suggesting new music based on the stuff you've already told them you like.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Not a bad idea. I've created an account on last.fm and have been playing with it. So far, it's suggested that if I like Soundgarden, I might like Alice in Chains, and if I like Mitch Benn, I might like Jonathan Coulton. Which I'd already figured out on my own. However, if it can do that well on a limited data set, it might do very well indeed once I've given it a chance to really learn my musical tastes.

(And it's given me a new bit of software to play with! Hurrah!)

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

I was going to suggest last.fm, mostly because it's got better international coverage than pandora. I mostly listen to various flavors of Euro-punk-folk these days and it's great for that (even though I can't read most of the other listeners' comments). I've spent way too much money at amazon.de as a result of that site.

I'm on there as datamuse.