How to you learn about new musical artists?

Mostly last.fm and this guy.

Through TV shows mainly, these days. Though I don’t watch TV, I only catch up on DVD in my own time so I’m a bit behind even then. Or myspace is actually good for something in that I go to my favourite artists’ pages and then go to their top friends that are musicians and see if I like that music too, then go to their top friends and so on. Other than that… probably just my friends and the radio when I happen to be in the car.

I belong to emusic (dot) com. They have some pretty obscure stuff there and not a lot of new mainstream stuff.

Friends that have similar tastes, magazines, bands that I like influences, and various media outlets.

last.fm

@JP

Is that the guy’s real picture?
He looks very familiar…

Well, if the last 24 hours are any indication I get my new music from Sueanne.

But really, the internet, music blogs, downloading random band names and trying them out just… sorta playing around. I also hang out in independent record shops and look for vinyls that have been “well loved”. The more beat up the jacket, the more someone invested their emotions in it.

last.fm, friends, and fluther

I look on Absolute Punk‘s website a lot. I also read Paste magazine and Relevant magazine as well as an occasional Spin.

If you are willing to jump outside the mainstream a little, you can try Stereogum. They have tons of free mp3s of some artists you probably haven’t heard of!

Thanks to all who mentioned last FM. I am there! Thanks for the link.

last.fm, as already mentioned. Friends, my brother, family etc. My urge to collect music and the discovery of my first favourite band (Boards of Canada) started from mis-tagged and similar tunes on P2P and torrent networks from a number of years ago.

I also find the TV has influenced parts of my musical library due to music from adverts, or adverts of CDs.

I really wish however that I could pinpoint where, when and why I started listening to a certain artist. Oh I wish.

Thanks, all, for the great suggestions!

projectplaylist.com

people frequently ask me how i find out about a lot of the bands i listen to, and i guess i have to give myspace some credit. i usually read about a band in a magazine, look them up on myspace (or purevolume, if they happen to have one), and then look at either their recommendations or others on their record labels, or their top friends. i think myspace is often overlooked as a mainstream bullshit website for music, but so many bands have them that it is rather convenient.
i never overlook good magazines though. bpm, death and taxes, nylon (though they tend to feature bands i like a few months after i like them)

Pandora Radio. Using the Music Genome Project, you can type in an artist or song you like, and it will play other music that is similar. I found many bands (even some new favorites) that I probably would have never heard of.