Music is not meant to be a solitary hobby. Share what you like, they’ll share what they like.
Like a piece of music? Look up that producer, or record label if it’s small. Look up the session musicians. Don’t just look up the artist.
Generally it’s not just the artist that makes the music top tier. There are other great professionals involved in the background and good people hire other good people to work in the background.
This is easy. Once you start doing this you end up with a queue of albums you want to get round to listening to. It’s easy enough to find too much music yourself without an algorithm. You start finding the artist radio a waste of your time.
The rabbit holes I’ve been down following a producer, guitarist, or bassist, etc. are usually very rewarding and often you pop up in another place you knew already after finding out about some lesser known great music on the way.
Number 1 is extremely slow, and I like so many tracks nobody I know likes. And if I look up similar artists on Spotify I instantly have the ability to listen to music instead of digging through record labels then manually searching for tracks on… I guess YouTube?
Spotify instantly gives you what the record companies paid for the algorithm to give you.
“Digging” isn’t hard. Give it a go.
But it sounds like you’re listed to “tracks” not albums. Frankly that’s your biggest mistake.
If you like lots of tracks other people don’t, you’ll always be struggling against an algorithm trying to feed you 3 minute songs nobody hates.
Listen to albums and every time you follow a rabbit hole you’ll have 40-80 minutes of music to listen to at least once, multiple times if it’s good.
You’ll find albums that are worth listening to as a whole and some you’ll keep tracks in playlists.
Personally I moved from CDs to Spotify to YouTube music, to buying CDs again, soon to have them on Jellyfin.
Once you get into actually listening to albums, 3 or 4 albums from eBay or charity shops are what I’d have paid for a subscription and if I need to take a break I’ve still got my old music and don’t have any more to pay.
You can of course sail the high seas if you’re strapped for cash or want things instantly. I consider the big 3 labels harmful and have only bought second hand copies. I try to buy from independents and smaller labels when I can directly.
The harm of the major labels is pretty big and frankly streaming has become their most harmful tool. I want to avoid supporting that model or supporting the big 3.
I don’t fully agree with your first paragraph. My release radar is always chalk full of new releases by artists I enjoy.
Digging? I’ve given that a go when I was a kid/teen. I don’t have hours to spend aimlessly surfing and finding music like I used to. I just can’t be bothered anymore.
I’m not struggling against an algorithm, quite the opposite actually. I like some music in different languages too andi get good recommendations based on those as well.
I get it, ra ra Spotify bad. But it’s been all right for me.
last.fm is pretty good. download music locally, scrobble it to last.fm, look at recommendations ans/or similar artists. also recommendations from fans tend to work well (comment sections, subreddits, forums, etc)
Honest question: I discover at maximum 1 new song that I like per week. I listen to metal and hard electronic music. As soon as the song has 20 seconds of intro I skip it. Spotify only suggests songs with long intros or songs that are just growling, which I don’t like too much, or that electronic over saturated sound where you only have bass and nothing else.
Spotify used to do that very well, but the last years it enshittified. Now it’s very difficult to find new artists or new music, heck even finding a playlist that isn’t auto generated by Spotify has become a challenge. Everything is now pushed by Spotify and they select which artists you listen to, the artists that make Spotify more money.
People in here looking for less evil alternatives to Spotify and you suggest Clear Channel, the company that killed local radio broadcasting and enshittified the airwaves long ago?
No one should use garbage Spotify!
Honest question, how else do I easily discover music that matches my taste if I don’t use a streaming service?
Music is not meant to be a solitary hobby. Share what you like, they’ll share what they like.
Generally it’s not just the artist that makes the music top tier. There are other great professionals involved in the background and good people hire other good people to work in the background.
This is easy. Once you start doing this you end up with a queue of albums you want to get round to listening to. It’s easy enough to find too much music yourself without an algorithm. You start finding the artist radio a waste of your time.
The rabbit holes I’ve been down following a producer, guitarist, or bassist, etc. are usually very rewarding and often you pop up in another place you knew already after finding out about some lesser known great music on the way.
Number 1 is extremely slow, and I like so many tracks nobody I know likes. And if I look up similar artists on Spotify I instantly have the ability to listen to music instead of digging through record labels then manually searching for tracks on… I guess YouTube?
Spotify instantly gives you what the record companies paid for the algorithm to give you.
“Digging” isn’t hard. Give it a go.
But it sounds like you’re listed to “tracks” not albums. Frankly that’s your biggest mistake.
If you like lots of tracks other people don’t, you’ll always be struggling against an algorithm trying to feed you 3 minute songs nobody hates.
Listen to albums and every time you follow a rabbit hole you’ll have 40-80 minutes of music to listen to at least once, multiple times if it’s good.
You’ll find albums that are worth listening to as a whole and some you’ll keep tracks in playlists.
Personally I moved from CDs to Spotify to YouTube music, to buying CDs again, soon to have them on Jellyfin.
Once you get into actually listening to albums, 3 or 4 albums from eBay or charity shops are what I’d have paid for a subscription and if I need to take a break I’ve still got my old music and don’t have any more to pay.
You can of course sail the high seas if you’re strapped for cash or want things instantly. I consider the big 3 labels harmful and have only bought second hand copies. I try to buy from independents and smaller labels when I can directly.
The harm of the major labels is pretty big and frankly streaming has become their most harmful tool. I want to avoid supporting that model or supporting the big 3.
I don’t fully agree with your first paragraph. My release radar is always chalk full of new releases by artists I enjoy.
Digging? I’ve given that a go when I was a kid/teen. I don’t have hours to spend aimlessly surfing and finding music like I used to. I just can’t be bothered anymore.
I’m not struggling against an algorithm, quite the opposite actually. I like some music in different languages too andi get good recommendations based on those as well.
I get it, ra ra Spotify bad. But it’s been all right for me.
My Spotify library does end up on plexamp
last.fm is pretty good. download music locally, scrobble it to last.fm, look at recommendations ans/or similar artists. also recommendations from fans tend to work well (comment sections, subreddits, forums, etc)
I’ve been using listenbrainz for a bit, and it’s pretty good.
Honest question: I discover at maximum 1 new song that I like per week. I listen to metal and hard electronic music. As soon as the song has 20 seconds of intro I skip it. Spotify only suggests songs with long intros or songs that are just growling, which I don’t like too much, or that electronic over saturated sound where you only have bass and nothing else.
How can I discover new songs that I like there?
Spotify used to do that very well, but the last years it enshittified. Now it’s very difficult to find new artists or new music, heck even finding a playlist that isn’t auto generated by Spotify has become a challenge. Everything is now pushed by Spotify and they select which artists you listen to, the artists that make Spotify more money.
I like mixcloud, my partner likes bandcamp. Both have pros and cons.
Potentially I Heart Radio to listen to various artists, then internet search to purchase their albums.
Might have to bring back mix tapes and record favourite songs over digital radio!
People in here looking for less evil alternatives to Spotify and you suggest Clear Channel, the company that killed local radio broadcasting and enshittified the airwaves long ago?
Sorry, i didn’t know about that. We still have local radio here in Australia, so it’s not so dire down here.
Sorry, nothing against you personally I guess, but I’m getting a little tired of this question.
You’re on social media right now, there are music communities.
Most posts do NOT link Spotify.
Personally I can add a few more sources/habits, but that would seem like the first and most obvious answer.
Music communities/discussion is not the same as spotify music discovery.
Communities can recommend you music that is the same genre as the music you like.
Algorithms can recommend music that you will like as much as your input taste.
Well they specifically asked “if I don’t use a streaming service”.
They can, but you can also try something else.
To some degree, but there are other ways (better imho) of broadening your horizon.
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