I've been listening to many new things that I found in rateyourmusic and /mu/'s essentials. I think I've pretty much come to the conclusion that music get's high ratings because of appeal and hype. That explains why the beatles are highest on the rateyourmusic chart. This may not make sense unless it's understood that the beatles have generations of admirers, and their influence on other music has probably been great. I don't know much about them; maybe more or less than I think I do, but I assume that's the reason why they're so popular.

Is dark side of he moon really the best album of all time? I don't think so. However it's rated highest on rateyourmusic, next to radiohead. I've avoided radiohead, although I don't understand why they're so popular. I simply have no desire to find out. Perhaps that's just one of my odd quarks. The point is, I realize it doesn't matter if I listen to radiohead or not. Just like some people love opeth, some people don't. I happen to be the latter. It's just a matter of taste.

I've been looking through /mu/ pretty often lately. I mostly overlook the shitty threads and just wait for a sharethread to pop up, or a funny one, or whatever thread I think I can find music in. I like to sample albums people say are good, or have interesting descriptions, or that I see been posted a lot. Most of it sucks, like really bad. Lil B (the based god) is one of the popular artists on there, but for reasons you wouldn't think right away. I think it's a joke, and it's an unspoken fact that he's horrendous. Sometimes you come across people who post about albums they like, followed by other people who say their taste is shit. I don't know, it's weird and subjective.

For me, it's all just another process of finding music. It's not as horrible any crazy as you may think. Only to the extent of just being hilarious. I think it's kind of weird/crazy that people are into so much new music, though. I think it's interesting how people can subject themselves to so much garbage to find good music. Looking past the shit posts, losers talking about feels, it's an interesting place to follow discussion of recent releases (mostly anthony fantano and pitchfork stuff). The problem is they all listen to a bunch of new 'hyped' things. I've found so many things in the share threads that sounded horrible.

I bring up /mu/, not because I think it's truly interesting what happens on /mu/. I want you to know what it's like for me when I'm trying to find new music. An introspective.

It's really more difficult that I could have imagined to find more good music (besides metal). It makes me appreciate the music I have come to enjoy even more. That's because the music I've found is music I've come to appreciate on my own. and not because I think I should like them because others do. However when it comes to finding new music (that isn't metal), short of going to the record store and closing my eyes and pulling a random CD off the shelf, I feel like there's no real sure fire way to find new and good things. That's why I, myself and others look to other people and charts, and /mu/ for music. Maybe some people go to /mu/ who don't even like music. I don't even know.

For finding new (metal) music I have searched through blogs to sample random stuff, spent time searching through youtube channels that upload rare things. Usually 99% of what I hear is forgettable. I don't do that much anymore though because I know a ton of good bands now, and tend to just look to stuff I overlooked before for new things. I've been looking to others lately to find good stuff, like I formerly mentioned. I don't think finding stuff by my own devices is that productive. It's hard to know what I like, and it feels like I have no direction. However, it interests me that perhaps there are people who put the effort into finding new things by their own devices; that's what makes hyped music hyped and acclaimed and popular and beloved in the first place. I envy people who have the patience for that.

You may ask, why I have I only searched for metal, and now all of a sudden I want to find more music to listen to? There's no good answer I can think to give you. I simply have found things I enjoy listening to, and now I want to find more good things I enjoy listening to.

All those things considered, I want to know how you find your new music (if you happen to look for things besides metal).

Dear metaldiscus,

Finding new music is incredibly hard, it's almost the hardest thing in the world. You might think Im joking but trust me when I say I've tried and failed. Its gotan to the point where I think you literally have to stumble across it (a CD i mean) when you're walking to your job, probably because someone droped it, and even then you wouldn't know if it was good until you listened to it and compared it to everything else. I mean its ridiculous. Sometimes I think I want some angel to come out from the sky to tell me what bands are good but I know its not gonna happen in my lifetime, so I just keep on listeniung to my same songs and hoping that something will happem. Its actually depressing, so I let me know if you find out something better, the internet doesnt help at all, and neither do all the music magazines, record stores, books, friends, and just plain old curiosity and experimentation. NOTHING WORKS

I know, IT'S SO DAMN HARD!!

I can get a pretty good idea whether or not a band will be good based on the combination of their band name, album names, song titles, logo, band pics, genre descriptors, label affiliations, scene connections, location and time period, since I have a strong grasp of what I do and don't like in metal and all these things taken together tend to correlate with what kinds of things the band will do musically and with what level of professionalism. Luckily MA has all that info available on band pages.

It is also worthwhile to have friends with similar taste, since they'll happen across things you won't happen across by happenstance and coincidence.

Why are you looking at music in such an alien manner? You don't have to go for the most popular or praised albums to find something you like, you obviously have different taste in music than most but you continually go to A and B site in hopes that the 'album of the moment' will suit you. Seek out similar artists to the ones you like, sometimes they wont be as good and other times they will. You say your searching is fruitless, use a different forum devoted to non-metal music and ask for recommendations based upon what you like. I personally find the sub-genre that interests me and then I research the defining bands of that sound, if one of them is what I'm after I'll find similar artists with that sound.

Edit: I probably gave the most civil response in this thread.

The fabled "new music" is said to be hidden in an ancient temple, buried beneath the sands of the Egyptian desert. If you wish to find it, you must acquire the Staff of Ra and its headpiece.

When I'm looking for new music, I go to my 'go to' guy. He provides me with the most obscure, low tier underground music that was recorded in the future. I then become extremely pretentious that day because I have access to digital files from the future. However, I totally get tired of listening to them when they become mid or top tier underground the next day. This 'go to' guy also satiates my thirst and hunger with meat slabs and alcoholic beverages.

Before you even realize you will be wearing a beret and discussing Sartre and Steve Jobs in a Starbucks caffè

Anyway, I find my music by trying random shit based on the standards John_Sunlight mentioned, trying bands that are related/grouped together to things I already like, and so on. I don't see the value in trying hyped and highly praised stuff if it doesn't match what I'm looking for in my music. I think you are wasting time in listening to the "essentials" of whatever site, specially rym and /mu/(though if you are into that kind of stuff go ahead).

I like to consider myself a true music connoisseur, most people don't understand my diverse taste in music because the music I listen to is different then theirs but my taste in music is awesome, they just don't get it.
So whenever I need my new music fix, I go straight to Rateyourmusics bottom albums of all time, I don't know what rym users are thinking but these are some straight up classic albums, essential for any true music fans. I mean, who needs lame outdated bands like The Beatles and Pink Floyd when you have these musical gems:
http://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?pa ... countries=

99 percent of everything that I have discovered in the past year came from Youtube. On my channel I am friends with a person who does big weekly updates of music that I have never heard of. I've discovered more new music in the past year, than when I was part of the underground tape trading scene in 1980. I have discovered a lot of new music in the past year from Youtube alone.

I look in Recommendations/youtube. Sometimes I google 'death metal blogspot', or something like that and if i find an album cover or song titles, I either download the album or look for it on youtube. Ive only got one label on facebook(razorback records) and they they promote stuff there.

usually through youtube, pandora, and bandcamp. Always look for recommended and related songs and videos based on what i like. I've also opened up my spectrum by checking out guest artist bands who may have appeared briefly on a metal album. I found Jesse Sykes and the sweet hereafter after listening to altar by boris and sunn O))), and that led to Josephine foster, Diane cluck, Caroline weeks, and a bunch of other psyche-folk artist in general.

Mainly youtube through related, a couple of other review sites, the just purchased thread here, this forum sometimes, another one i post at sometimes, rarely from recommendations from some friends in real life or through social media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCopQAVxeU0

Mostly last fm similar artists/recommendation radio, metal archives forums, talking to people IRL and on omegle, magazines, etc, it's not hard to find good music. Great music on the other hand doesn't come along all the time, but that's a part of the fun.

I didn't even bust his balls, so that goes to me.

Mostly through lurking these boards and other forums.

I kind of wish I could stop finding new music. I have neither enough time nor enough money to both acquire and appreciate everything I am interested in. Good stuff is everywhere anyway, and when you're as relentlessly curious+bored with work as I am it's everywhere. That's why I'm not answering the question-- I don't know where I found most things, there's great music everywhere!

On a side note, I do find the rateyourmusic best of lists interesting to peruse but they do tend to be fairly skewed in a number of ways-- hanging around the site a bit makes it much easier to tell how severly something highly-rated is enjoyings the benefits of this skewness. As an example, the all time top album list is heavily biased towards certain styles and levels of perceived artistry and innovation, and also towards older albums. The algorithms used to rank albums favour popularity so more well-known stuff is always going to win out.

Dark Side of the Moon and OK Computer are both amazing but as you say it doesn't actually matter whether you like them or not. Not every style is for everyone. Animals is better than Dark Side anyways.

I have discovered a lot of music from these forums ,and youtube .For me it is just finding where i can buy the album's or get mp3 downloads,ESPECIALLY mp3 down load's. I know, i know, mp3 downloads suck, but man it takes forever for thing's to get shipped to my neck of the woods and unless i'm positive it is going to be a good album or a collectors item, i don't want to wait a month.

Finding music is easy, not sure what people are talking about.
What I do is search an obscure band on Youtube and on the suggestions, usually there'll be a song or a full album of a band I've never heard of on the side of the page.
If I like the song, I'll search the album and reviews and if I don't, nothing lost, I'll just search something again and hope next time something awesome will come up.

I use to use this Recommendation board but I like to use Grooveshark and while there's a small selection of obscure bands on there, it misses most awesome demo/EP only bands.

RYM charts are not so great (just look at the new MBV: 1500 ratings in less than 2 days), but if you can get over the hype they are also not SO bad.
IMO the best things about RYM are the genre-pages and the lists

if you search "alternative rock" you'll find this page http://rateyourmusic.com/genre/Alternative+Rock/ with "top releases" on the right but also subgenres (with their own "top releases")!
http://rateyourmusic.com/rgenre/ and this page is better than the entire music section of wikipedia


if instead you are looking for "forgotten gems" of death metal for example, a list like this may help you:
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/ChristsCa ... eath_metal
or this one for the "new old school" death metal:
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Audioslav ... lack_death
etc.

I think the problem is that's there's no genre better for finding new music. There's no other genre that I can scour through blogspots and recommendation lists to find that next gem. There's only bands outside the realm that aren't very similar to many other things. Since most other things don't sound as good, there's not that motivation to feel like looking further.

Since there's no other genres that are even available for that kind of thing I simply don't have a way to look for that next gem without perhaps looking to rateyourmusic. Even people in this thread say that rateyourmusic is skewed by hype and I happen to agree. So yeah, I guess it is just simply hard to find more music.

On the other hand, when you really think about it, having stuff like the /mu/ recommendation charts isn't bad either. Without those or anything what the heck do you do to find new music in the first place? Hell, without the internet I couldn't imagine being into the music I am today without it. I'd be listening to the shit my parents listen to.

Actually, I think they finally broke that one down into an equation. Turns out Dark Side is the best album of all time, and anyone who thinks any differently is wrong every time they open their mouth.

This is why mathematics cannot be trusted.