Ask Lemmy

I listen from my own library on Plex. Currently I go alphabetically and add albums with 0 plays on my queue. Once I've listened to them all, I will use a smart list that populates from songs that are not played in last 90 days to keep it fresh.

radio.garden is a pretty neat project. They have radio stations from all over the world. I also follow some DJs and music nerds on Mastodon.

I started dating a DJ

I'll answer as well:

I mainly listen to what's in my current library, using shuffle. When I want to discover new music, I typically look at artists of songs I currently like, and see If I like any of their other works.

Ignoring artists and songs in my current library: I mainly discover music from media I consume, such as games, movies, TV and web videos. If I like a song, I'll look it up, and add it to a playlist based on a category (mainly genre). If a song has a album, I may look into the album as well.

I do everything you say.

I also listen to podcasts and follow blogs which recommend me music.

Sometimes i listen to the radio too, or shazam music i hear in public.

Loaded question! When i was younger I had a list of stuff i wanted to try like classic rock which moved to other more obscure genres from the past while also keeping up with what was newer and semi popular through websites, articles, and local radio.

I have always gotten most music off my private pirate sites and use local apps to stream my entire library on my phone, pc, or anything else everywhere. It has gotten so good lately that it can build out radio style mixes based off popular track information and even using AI (first time i have ever thought it was useful) to build playlists of similar tracks in the library based off individual wave lengths to get the best accuracy. I tried using spotify once when i got 6 months free and found that i only used it like 3 times and found it more dificult to find what i wanted or new stuff to check out weirdly enough. These days i mostly just download whats new for artists i already know and see them in the top 10 of my pirate sites or just new stuff in the top 10 that fits the genres i like. At the end of the year ill check out top 50 lists to see if i missed anything and ill get them as well. Its worked out pretty good for the past 20 years now although as i get older it gets harder to find the time or interest in it like I used to...

For anyone in here enjoying radio, but not commercials or radio hosts, try out

soma.fm

It has a ton of channels and genres and is entirely free (donation funded).

Yes. All except search by genre.

I listen to community radio, look at music related websites, let the music app dj, sometimes my kids show me music or vice versa, and opening acts at shows.

90% of the time I know what I want to listen to.

The other 10% of the time I will listen to new things I've squirreled away in my personal listening queue, because the art was interesting, I've heard good things, or I randomly heard a song I like. Sometimes recommendations from friends will make it into that queue.

Random mixes, not usually. I'm far too picky. But there are niche subgenre mixes that can be good.

All of those and some others.

Ive also collected friends over the years with similar and dissimilar tastes that are excited to send me new music they find. This is the way I find most NEW music, as in stuff i hadn't heard or known of before. The problem I have the most is getting stuck in these algorithm loops where even when i discover something new through say spotify or youtube the algorithm wants to tune a Playlist to what it thinks is what i enjoy instead of whats closest to that song or band or whatever. For this I have 2 friends I can simply text "algorithm breaker" and theyll send me something totally out of left feild that I will love. That usually does the trick for a day or two at least.

Pull a random record out of the 1,000 or so I have and let it rip.

Unless I have something specific in mind of course.

1. A lot of music I find anymore comes from me either finding a CD at a thrift store or a second hand local record shop that has tons of CDs. Has to look good to me at the moment.
2. The algorithm that I tend to hate on yt has also brought me some random songs that I ended up listening to that I like. There ain't no way I would have naturally found a certain furry song I really like, considering it's all in Vietnamese, without the evil algorithm. Last I checked, I never talk about Vietnam unless they're in the news that very rare time where I live, don't know the language, etc. So the algorithm just pulled that my furry account must want it because furry.
3. If I like a song from someone, mainly referring to things like vocaloid and utau type songs, there's a good chance I will eventually check out other songs from that person. VocaDB is pretty good for that if they don't have a yt page considering even if they don't have one, somebody else has probably already uploaded it to yt at some point. I can just look at a certain producers page and hope their song list is up to date or complete in the case of people who ain't making vocaloid/utau/whatever music anymore.
4. Back on the topic of vocaloid/utau, I tend to be more likely to check out a song in the suggestion section of yt when listening to a song of this genre. Has found me some good songs.
5. Okay, final thing about vocaloid. I have found a few different songs I've never heard of that I end up really liking thanks to the Project Diva series and back when I played the Project Sekai mobile game. So checking licensed rhythm games is always a good option, I guess.

i have hard time understanding the case here, how is that you don't know the TYPE of music you like? I can see that you might ask for suggestions for a given music style, but the type? I don't get it

• No.
• No.
• No.

I go by mood. This personality makes it so that it takes forever to discover music that I haven't heard before.

It either depends on my mood, or if I have to focus on something.

As far as focusing on an activity, if it's something that does not require a lot of thought, such as the audits I do at work every day, I'll pretty much listen to anything. If I need to actually focus and think, then I'll put on classical music, in particular Debussy, or Mozart.

There is an in between where I need to focus, but I have already figured whatever I'm working on out and just need to become adept at doing it. In that case I will listen to Rush for the most part. I'm not sure what it is about their music, but it engages me enough that I'm not bored doing something repetitive, but also allows my brain to quickly jump back to the task at hand when needed, then jump back to listening to the music. No other band works for me in that way. It's really weird and I've spoken with multiple psychologists and other mental health professionals as to why. None had a clue, other than one speculated that their precision playing is the reason.

If I hear a song I like while out doing whatever, I'll add it to my playlist and usually check out more from the artist.

Though I also just have a list of artists I like and stick to for the most part :p

I don't select anything. I go where my current mood takes me. If I like something, I like it. If I want to hear it again, I save the music or add it to a playlist.

I'm from the MTV generation, we heard music on MTV and that got us to buy CDs. There was also rock radio. Rock radio doesn't really exist anymore, at least not in the west. Radio isn't free to run, so to run music, they have to run ads to pay the bills. When their bills go up, they either increase ad time (take away from the music), or they play cheaper music. So, slop like pop and country that costs them less. Streaming has similar bullshit. You add a song to your playlist. You go through the artist's discography to choose the song from the original album release — or maybe you go with the remaster. We're not debating that here. Either way, the song comes up on shuffle and all of a sudden it's from a soundtrack or Greatest Hits compilation. See, it's the same audio, but being from a compilation means it costs the streamer less, and they hope you don't notice/care about the album art. Generally if you set it back, they'll leave it be, but sometimes they'll change it again.

Anyway, rock music is kinda dead in the west (it's really not) because the venues promoting it (MTV and rock radio) no longer do so. So western (USA, UK/EU, Australia) rock is mostly indie these days. Or old timers hanging on. In the east though, business is booming. Anime is getting a lot of western eyes and ears tuning in, so they use the opening and ending themes to highlight music from their country. Streaming music from these bands and artists lead to more, similar Japanese songs. So for example ONE OK ROCK never did anime before, but I discovered them because I discovered Survive Said the Prophet via either Vinland Saga or Banana Fish and, hey, these other guys sound similar. (ONE OK ROCK has since licensed their song Prove to the children's anime Beyblade X, over a decade after becoming popular.)

Back in the day, yeah, I listened to my friends and what they listened to. These days I'll listen to a song I like, see what other playlists it's on (this is on Apple Music), and sometimes I'll play that playlist to see what they have.

I also run a music community (on the instance I'm on). I'm not 100% clear how to link them, and the guy running my instance has had beef with the people running .world (the instance this was posted on, the instance OP is a member of). So, out of respect for .world and for them allowing me to be here, probably best I don't? Even though I have no real part in that issue, whatever it was. Music can be, but isn't political for me. It's more spiritual, as in, I listen to music to soothe my spirit. Anyway, I run a music comm and I post a song every day. It's mostly western (American, European, or Australian) rock, or Japanese rock. There's like one country song. The first song I posted was Celtic (it's Enya), but, mostly it's rock. So you could say I don't have much variety. I dunno, I'm going through my favourites. And I'm telling stories with a lot of them. Anyway, the comm's open, I haven't messed with any of the settings (I don't even have a header image yet), so anybody is free to post whatever. Though, .world has a music comm as well. .world doesn't need your help, it's the biggest one, but I'd still always advise anyone on any instance to support your own instance. That's why I made a music comm, we didn't have one. Figured I could post on any other music comm (and maybe even be welcome to post daily), but... I wanted to support my own instance. And I wouldn't advise anyone else otherwise. But hey, if you wanna see what I've posted... it's just called "music" on the instance I'm on. Shouldn't be hard to find.

For my normal background playback I apply a random track shuffle across my entire library, with a delay on repeating each track by a month for each iteration of its play count.

If a track has not been played before, can be included in the list immediately.

If a track has been played 6 times, it can be included once 6 months have passed since its last play.

There’s a lot of great indie music on the fedi, and places to listen to it:

https://nham.co.uk/ Radio

https://theindiebeat.fm/ (several radio channels)

https://tv.theindiebeat.fm/ (24/7 Fedi MTV)

And more : https://nham.co.uk/2025/06/how-do-i-connect-with-artists-on-the-fediverse-cheat-sheet/

mostly the first one, the vast majority of new music i listen to these days is recommended by someone. it's either that or they're doing a show or a festival with someone i already listen to. a distant third is the radio, especially after a move

if it's a new-to-me artist, then i'll drill down into their back catalog, but that's only after the recommendation. if it's a new-to-me genre then i do a lot more independant research but that's fairly rare these days because i've already plucked all the low-hanging fruit.

even before The Algorithm became the mighty spectre it is today, i've never been happy with random or algorithmic feeds. Pandora for example would always play songs and artists with the superficial connections to the artist i build the channel off of instead of actually similar-sounding artists. and the same ok-at-best cover of The Guess Who's "American Woman" every five or so songs, not sure what was up with that. i tried Spotify as an alternative years before it was the mighty spectre it is today and i remember logging out after the third song and never logging back in

Music venues. There's 3 small places near me, so when I want to hear something new I'll look up the bands on youtube, if I like it I'll get a ticket to see 'em, plus the support acts.

Also I find indie labels are a good source of similar artists to ones I already like, e.g. Underdog Records

There's frankly far too much good music for me to even process.

I have a signal group called 'music' where friends post music, that alone would cover most of my needs.

I tend to either listen to albums or shuffle my whole library but like a bit of internet radio too.

I spent maybe 2yrs trying to deal with the cluterfuck of Spotify and it's algorithms...kill it with fire. I have to deal with it at parties n stuff but helps me appreciate it's not just my algorithm, those that love it and have been honing it for many years are being fed the same shite that came out of mine.

The idea that someone is struggling to find music that has an internet just seems insane to me, like saying how do you find porn, news or cat pics with computer.

• Suggestions: Depends.
• Do I search for songs: Yes
• Random mix: Yesnt
  I have my playlist of all songs I like/sorted by topic and use the algorithm-mix to have more of that (which is a complete mix of multiple genres. So the suggestions are very diverse but samey/repetetive at some point).

To find new music:
A: By random chance like at restaurants, generally outside or youtube suggestions
B: Coming across a song while pirating an song/album, looking for the whole album and then liating to the artist if I enjoy more of their works.
C: Window shopping (usually after coming after C) D: Spotify playlists on genres (before they automated those and tailored it to the user. Now it's only semi functional to find songs not already in a playlist). Listenbrainz has a suggestion mechanism but I never really looked at it. AFAIK it works by looking at the history of you and matching peers and then suggesting content (don't know if similar or "taste-breaking" suggestions)

Generally my journey is
1: Find song somewhere
2: Look what else the artist put out
3: If the releases generally fit my taste, skip through some albums
4: If I like an album I'll either buy or pirate it
Buy: The album is reasonably priced
-> New: I want it in peime condition or 2nd hand will not give me any major benefits
-> 2nd Hand: It's noticable cheaper than new (rereleases) or out of sale

Sites like musicbrainz and discogs make it very easy to look for specific releases and also assisted me in finding new stuff while looking up metadata or cross-referencing other artists out of curiosity.

For example, I wasnt aware that almost artists of 'Tokyo Health Club' were individual artists and thus found out that SIKK-O still released songs that were similar to those of THC :)

So if someone likes or is not against japanese lyrics in music I have the following suggestions:

• Chill Rap (also called Jazz Rap): Almost anything from Tokyo Health Club. Similar sounding artists of the group are SIKK-O and Tsubame. I think the others of the group became inactice or transitioned to being in producing roles.
• City Pop: Mellow - The best of J-AOR (album mix)
• City Pop: 変身 by Original Love (album)
• Jazz: Maltese Falcon (マルタの鷹) Kazuhiko Kato (加藤和彦)
• Tōhō/Touhou of various genres with a wide voice range: Anything by Akatsuki Records (暁Records)
• Techno/Club: 攻殼機動隊 MEGATECH BODY.Cd., LTD. (It's a OST for the PS1 game 'Ghost in the Shell: Megatech Body' game)
• Retrowave/Outrun: Anything by Carpenter Brut

Usually I've got a specific itch I'm trying to scratch, and often that itch is "novelty". So I'll pick a song I like and listen to other things by the same artist. Or listen to community radio. Or ask friends what new music they found recently.

One thing I started doing that I really like is asking peeps to give me mix CDs or handmade playlists instead of buying gifts for my birthday and Christmas.

I thought I'd try 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (I'm using https://1001albumsgenerator.com/ ), but it's been a bit disappointing really - I'm nearly 800 in and only found 1 new artist to add to my collection. I guess I'm just old and set in my ways.

What do you do to find music?

I grew up in the 90s/00s, and my music taste developed by learning what that fun radio station my dad listened to in the car was, then starting tuning in myself.

After that, I started learning the song titles and artists, at that point I started pirating music.

Then I found pandora, it was available for free here at the time, so I put in some artists I liked, it suggested more music to listen to, one artist of which became my favorite artist, at the time you could just grab the MP3 playing in pandora from the web cache, so I got some more music for my collection.

Then over time stuff like this kept going and my music collection grew, then I got into C64 and Amiga remixes, and started listening to Slayradio (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), a free internet radio station of brilliant music that most of the time can be downloaded for free legally.

Then came the accidental purge....

I was trying to reinstall one of my computers, and forgot about the USB drive with the only copy of my entire music library (6000 songs) being plugged into the computer, and wiped everything ):

For a while I survived on Slayradio and what little music I had on my phone, but when I later got my first iPhone in 2016, I started buying tracks on iTunes, I still do that, DRM free, and decently simple to use.

Then I really started noticing going hard into switching between different genres and artists periodically.

There was a time I was obsessed by 90s eurodance, then 80s rock, then early 2000 trance, them suddenly classical and opera music, then back to trance, then folk music, after that, power metal, and so on.

I was completely obsessed by Sabaton in 2021 or so when I had double heel spurs, double flat feet and a bad knee at the same time, I dragged myself home crying from the pain in each step from the bus, while blasting Sabaton way too loud in my headphones just to get the energy to get home.

Then more trance, then 80s hair metal, and now I often blast the Command & Conquer sound tracks by Frank Klepacki, right now, Grinder from Red Alert 2 is the song I keep thinking of....

Currently? Two main sources: my kids and other media

So lots of songs found from soundtracks and background music on other videos. Which leads to artists I may or may not become a fan of.

Kids still go to shows and keep up with new releases, not sure how they find new stuff. They are grown and out of the house.

When I was younger it was Pandora. I'd listen to Pandora channels and if I heard something new I'd grab the artists discography off limewire. Go through and see what I liked. Sometimes I'd see who opened live for the artists I really liked then listen to them too. Now that I can afford to support artists I try to by buying physical media. I swap it with friends. I have 3 buddies I do this with. Every month or so we trade an album or two.

Most of the time a song just starts playing in my head and I listen to it when I have time. Other times I rifle through my memories of the music I love and find one that I like to listen too, sort of like a radio. So, no to all of that.

When I started writing this Radiohead started playing. heh.

I've yet to discover an artist that consistently puts out good music so I'm hunting for individual good tracks from different artists instead. I find that YouTube is pretty good at recommending those. I search for a song I like and then go by the recommendations. I even canceled my Spotify subscribtion because I find that YouTube is better at recommending me music I actually like.

Also - and this is going to be really unpopular - I've gotten into AI generated music lately and I must say that when it comes to instrumental especially it's on average better than human artitsts. I've yet to find a true gem made by AI but I like to have a playlist of Progressive Jazz House or similar on the background and many of the playlists consisting of 100% AI generated tracks are consistently good where as with human made ones it tends to be a ton of absolute crap and few decent ones in between.

Example

Best experience was hearing a song in a bar and asking the staff what it was. I discovered both Portishead and Maceo Parker this way...