Good morning. It can be challenging to discover new music on streaming platforms. Today, some ideas to help you out of a listening rut.
Sound systemSeveral years ago, in a misguided effort to reclaim closet space, I threw out all my CDs. Yes, all of them. I figured I’d uploaded most to my computer, and the rest I’d overlistened to anyway. I should have known I’d come to regret this move — I am, after all, the same person who, in a madcap period of college “reinvention,” threw all her childhood diaries into the dumpster behind the dorm. There were, of course, dozens of homemade mixes in those bursting plastic-paged binders of discs: the road trip mix that soundtracked a drive from Seattle to Los Angeles in the summer of 2002. (I remember it included Nick Drake’s cover of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.”) One was made up entirely of songs about houses and home. (Besides “This World Is Not My Home” by His Name Is Alive, what else was on it?) Oh, and an old friend had compiled the music he’d loved on Nigerian AM radio as a child. (I discovered so many musicians from that CD.) All those personally curated playlists, all beyond retrieval now. In my defense, I did not know when I tossed those CDs that, in the future, my musical life would be governed by a cruel robot DJ who would care nothing for expanding my horizons. A maddening algorithm that would, despite all my best attempts to find new stuff, keep feeding me the same songs I already knew. I have, according to my notes, been complaining about the algorithm’s refusal to introduce me to new music since mid-2024, when I first wrote in my notebook of ideas for this newsletter, “Streaming is starting to ruin my relationship with music.” I wanted to write about this, but I didn’t want to come to you with a problem and no solution. (It’s Saturday morning. You’re trying to unwind, you don’t need another thing to be upset about.) So for the past year and a half, I’ve been trying to figure out the easiest way to uncover new music. Not new releases, not new songs like the ones I already like, but music that’s new to me, by artists I haven’t encountered before. I haven’t steered out of the rut completely, but I’m getting some traction. (My hacks for music discovery are by no means the only ones — there are zillions of sites, podcasts, publications and podcasts devoted to this — but it can be hard to find a way in.) Here’s what works for me: Ask people you know to make you playlists. What else do they have to do today? It’s also a good way to get to know people better. And flattering! It says, “You have good taste.” Excavate your old MP3 library. Mine’s on an old auxiliary hard drive, but there were some forgotten gems and albums I’d never fully explored on there. Try La Blogothèque’s Take-Away Shows. Since 2006, this French collective has made videos of musicians performing outside traditional concert spaces. Some are well known (e.g., Bon Iver on the streets of Paris) and many are less so. They make playlists of each year’s concerts. Think Tiny Desk Concerts, without the desk. Go to concerts early and see the opening bands. This is a suggestion from the music critic Lindsay Zoladz. “I’m off social media entirely these days, so I am into more analog ways of finding things I like,” she told me. She also advises Shazaming that song that sounds interesting in a restaurant or store. Of course, Lindsay’s newsletter, The Amplifier, is one of the best sources for recommendations. Listen to the radio. What a concept! I always forget I can listen to most any radio station, anywhere in the world. There are a lot of sites that collect interesting feeds: Indie music. Music for working. Choose your decade + country. Mine other people’s Spotify playlists. Search for friends, musicians, stores, brands, publications (Aquarium Drunkard has eclectic lists), radio stations (a weird ouroboros, but your college radio station might very well be on there), celebrities (I’ve enjoyed the writer Michael Chabon’s archive), exes with good taste, record labels (Numero Group is wonderful), people you met once and found interesting — they might have troves of playlists on their public profiles. I’ve long since fallen out of touch with the friend who cataloged Nigerian tunes. But I searched him on Spotify and found that not only has he continued to make incredible playlists, but the very playlist I loved from 20 years ago is in his library. I’ve been making my way through his latest creations. Writing this newsletter was an excuse to get back in touch and thank him.
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