My tried and true method is to go to the thrift store and pick out some $1 cds with cool/interesting/weird artwork. You’ll find some bangers.
My “Featured on Kotaku for thinking war crimes are bad” t-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt.
I have some some friend groups where we have playlists in which we share artists with each other. On one of my podcasts my cohost and I also have a little segment where we recommend albums to each other every month. I also discover a lot through the music scene. I’m not as active anymore but I’d discover bands by playing with them or just having my bandmates play different stuff in the van on tour.
Soulseek mostly
I have been on rateyourmusic for eighteen years now and it has been my main discovery tool for most of that time. Its genre/descriptor tagging systems let you get real granular with it, like I can decide I want to find something ethereal and noisy with historical themes and a female vocalist and bam, there it is. It’s so good dude.
Potrzebie
2am browsing of Bandcamp is most of my discovery. And occasionally randomly bumping into some youtube video that sounds neat with a linked bandcamp account, which then goes on the wishlist.
It does help that most of my taste has switched from metal to most electronic stuff so that’s usually easier to find that way. Though I’ve also found some random punk bands so, I guess it can go anyway.
I discover new music by buying new video games. 
80-90% of what I listen to are video game soundtracks or fan arrangements.
For the rest, I usually discover music either through friends mentioning them, general curiosity after hearing about some artist, or from hearing a cover somewhere (like a reality talent show) and wondering where the original came from.
There’s a lot of popular music out there that I’m completely clueless about. I had never (knowingly) heard Taylor Swift music until early this year when I finally decided to educate myself and turn on a playlist (it’s fine; most of her work is not really my thing).
THIS. I peruse YouTube Music way too often, on the prowl for new video game music that I never would have learned about by using any other app like Spotify or something.
~Your new favorite gaming podcast~
In usually stumble upon new tunes, either by chance, by destiny or just by looking up a genre tag on bandcamp. Sometimes youtube has also a nice surprise in store, but I’m wary of AI music. If i listen to something only to realize it’s AI, I feel betrayed and angry.
drink more water!
Through playing way too many rhythm games
Sometimes recommendations between friends
Very rarely Spotify algorithm not for long anymore as I’m planning to cancel before the next payment
I love my wife
I like to either let youtube reccomend me stuff (not a great success rate but i’ve found some bangers that way)
Or I will get on Orpheus and crawl around the related artists web (doing this back in the what.cd days is how I found the vast majority of what I still listen to)
Mostly I just talk with people who know music, kind of like how you need to know someone to get into a big series?
Here’s one a friend linked for ex: https://youtu.be/MTIDZGqjlls
We work hard, we play hard.
Vg music has it all. So so much good music out there. Happy that, finally, people talk about video game music almost as casually as “normal” music.
AND in contrast to normal music, with Vg music you get the OG track AND hundreds of remasters, remixes, rearrangement, mashups, compilations, filtered (lofi, glitch, scratched)
It. Is. Glorious!
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I don’t really discover new music, I just fall into it, but I also have a small circle of music I listen to. As a younger person, I’d look at the liner notes on CDs and see when a bands name would come up multiple times across different bands and then I’d assume they were safe to check out.
I also have a problem that I need to enjoy a bands entire catalog before I can “love” them, and when something goes bad, I drop the whole band.
It’s a problem.
__________________________
Check out all my stuff: https://linktr.ee/darrenhupke
May i present the most chaotic solution of all time to finding new music?
A friend showed me this recently and i just begun exploring, but its a blast
Just pick a genre, then it shows its main artists. But it has so many genres. Personally i think the visual clutter of so much options is it’s own charm
Porque metade de mim é amor
E a outra metade também
Recommendations from friends and then picking and choosing from the list at the bottom of Stereogum’s album of the week. Sometimes that album, too. I maintain a monster playlist all year where I throw in new releases as I come across them, then turn it on where I left off when I want to hear something new.
Uhhhh I think this just changed my life I cannot believe this is real
Mix a things really. Radio shaped a lot of what I had growing up, a friend I adore had a wall of CDs as tall as me, she just buys whatever has a cover that looks even a little interesting. And for a wildcard, conventions. I picked up a pair of really sick experimental CDs at Anthrocon this past year specifically for her. That crowd had more than just CDs though - one guy was selling vinyls and cassettes even. Not that you’d know because that particular guy was in the age gated section since that was, shall we say not the primary merchandise he offered.
Another friend is into making experimental music and I like sticking the tracks they make into my playlists sometimes. Unreleased tracks go brr. And if I’m truly dry on tracks, I’ve got friends I think at this point in every timezone by now and pestering for some word of mouth recommends will always get me something new, language not mattering to me in the least ouo
The world’s worst spirit.
(You could hug me, if you asked politely.)
I started listening to NTS after seeing a video essay where a dude recommended them. Also for the past few weeks I’ve been co-facilitating the Music Appreciation group where I volunteer, so members keep suggesting bands that are new to me who I then check out.
Another way I find music is through TikTok. I have mixed feelings about the platform overall but its past as musical.ly means there’s still a lot of music use in its dna.
For instance, yesterday I found this song on a sub-300 liked video that the song’s artist posted, and it’s one of my favorite things I’ve found this year.
A relatively new way that I am discovering new music is just listening to whatever is on at the gym each morning. I don’t take my own headset or music, and they have a setup where anyone can put in requests. I hear a lot of different music this way.
Some of it is terrible, some of it is funny, and some of it gets added to my Apple Music catalog when I leave.
I listen to Enn! Tee! Ess! (NTS Radio) and also follow various music Bluesky accounts, participate in polls and such. One current poll is Black Pop History 1982-85 ( @peoples-pop-polls.bsky.social on Bluesky ) - OK, that’s not new but you’d have to be pretty knowledgeable not to discover something new to you.
I have over 10,000 songs saved to my master playlist on YouTube Music, so at this point they do a pretty good job guessing what my tastes are and what stuff I might be into so I find a lot of new or new-to-me stuff just through letting them shuffle through music after a song or album and making note of stuff I like to explore more. I also use their autogenerated playlists in genres that I know I really like, and try to take notice of stuff being talked about by people whose tastes I’ve come to trust on social media. Finally I read a lot of Wikipedia articles about genres I like when it comes to older but new-to-me music and see what artists they talk about as important on there that I haven’t dug into yet.
I follow artists on Bandcamp, do tag searches, and generally fall down rabbit holes on YouTube and my music streaming platforms (I’m on TIDAL).
For me word of mouth is #1, having friends that have good taste and know my taste is the best
Alongside that going to shows or festivals without knowing the bands and just see what you vibe with, I’ll often connect to music much more if I hear it live, found a lot of bands this year from taking a chance on them and loving the energy.
Sabotage will set us free // throw a rock in the machine
2024-01-05 status update: With my 2023-12-04 layoff from Spotify I lost the internal data-access required for ongoing updates to many parts of this site. Most of this, as a result, is now a static snapshot of what, for now, will be the final state from the site’s 10-year history and evolution
Ugh, it’s so unfortunate that it’s dormant.
But a great bookmark nonetheless, especially for exploring uncharted territory!
drink more water!
Thats why we can’t have nice things 
Porque metade de mim é amor
E a outra metade também
Is your quote from the Refused song or am I ignorant to another potential influence or use of it?
__________________________
Check out all my stuff: https://linktr.ee/darrenhupke
We pay just $3 a month for SiriusXM and I pretty much only listen to the metal station and they soooooometimes play songs that aren’t Lorna Shore or fucking Avatar
~Your new favorite gaming podcast~
Yep haha, love that song
Sabotage will set us free // throw a rock in the machine
I find most of the music I listen to by navigating tags on Bandcamp. It’s not really easy to do but you can mess with the URL to make your own search engine and find some people autodeterminating themself in some different genre. It’s nice and you can find some really niche stuff. Sometime you can find label pages and so it’s a jackpot of new people creative composer to listen to.
I still use Youtube and check the channels of people uploading singles from people. From time to time they just have a bunch of cool songs.
Also I navigate a lot on Free Music Archive, I do the trick of going to the Top All Time and then go to the last page and listen to the no listened tracks 
yep yep yep, true true true
Community radio, I refresh their websites when they update their weekly playlists and tune into their morning and drive programming when I drive to and from work. Playlists are often saved online.
I also have shows that I tune into regularly, some are hosted online after their airing.
In Sydney, where I live this amounts to 2SER and FBi, I’m also a paid subscriber which I find incentivised me to place more importance in listening frequently and supporting the creation of this content.
I play a new (or old) videogame, and then get obsessed with its soundtrack for a few weeks.
I make too many games.
A local place which shut down recently had a deal where you could grab 20 cassettes for 20 dollars, and I loved going there every month to pick up another copy the same two Genesis albums that I forgot I had picked up last month along with 17-18 or so more cassettes of whatever caught my eyes or felt like something I would never have listened to otherwise.
