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Musical Discovery Methods

so I was reading this wired mag article (http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0...tw=wn_culture_5) which is a familair topic, the decline of music sales, except this one came with the results of a nation wide survey that said something interesting at the bottom:

quote:

FM radio is still the main way most fans find out about new music, according to the poll. Television shows are a distant second.

which brings up the age old question, how do you find out about music, what do you do to explore?

The way I see it, there are several methods working for dance music:
-Radio whoring(listen to a radio, whether it be your local FM station or digitally imported, just waiting for good stuff to come on, then you ID it and buy it)
-Party Spotting(go out alot, listen to the tracks the DJ plays, ID the ones that interest you)
-DJ Stalking(you're a fan of a certain DJ, follow that person's sets, get stuff that person plays from their tracklists)
-Web Watching(go to sites that mention tunes, your EDM news sites, your web forums, the Radio1's dance section, whatever, and just listen to every track that you find mentioned on those sites until you find enjoyable music)
-Recomendation services(sites like last.fm, shops like amazon, various charts, all have little systems in place to pick music for you, find a source whose judgement you trust and buy their shit like you're in the Oprah book club)
-Magazines and gossip(keep up with the words people say, figure out what people think is the cool thing, let other people tell you what the flavor of the month is, get the stuff they suggest, listen to the cd's that come in the mag)
these few methods have the side effect that you are never going to be the early adopter if you do it this way, somebody has to play the tune for you, somebody else already whoring the thing before you can even figure out what it is called. You have other people acting as a filter so that everything you find has their approval first, some would call this a blessing because it provides a certain quality control, others would disagree.

Then there are other ways:
-Record Shop Hunting(go to the record store, spend six hours in there listening to tunes, buy the interesting ones)
-Random searching(get on google, or napster, or some sort of search engine that lets you search for music and enter in something like "trance 2006" or "phat dope shit" or whatever random phrase or description that you can think of, and listen to whatever happens to show up in the result)
-Promo filtering(you have to be in a position of privalege, people send you all sorts of music, you pick out the good stuff)
-Label whoring(find some artists, labels, record pools, some sort of collective that consistently puts out sounds you enjoy, and just follow them)
These take more work, record shop hunting is traditionally reserved for DJ's because you are usually going into a shore that has crates and crates of vinyl that you carry up to the store's tables and listen to one by one, hard to do when there are no good record stores within traveling distance, unless you have the patience to liten to crappy samples of every track on an internet shop. At least you get to choose for yourself though, these methods allow you to deviate and find possibly unique things, all except for label whoring which first requires finding a source that you like.

I tend to do alot of radio whoring, I listen to alot of different streams and pick out stuff that is good. I used to do alot more random searches and recomendation services but they haven't brought me much success lately.

What strategies do you all use for exploring music? What do you think works the best for finding quality trance? I just wonder how other people do it sometimes, where do they find the stuff, where does it come from?

I started finding music through Amazon.com and CDUniverse.com, usually I would find an artist I liked and it would link to me to similar artists. I would also listen to net radio stations to find new tunes. That was like 7 or 8 years ago. A few years ago I started listening to GDJB and ASOT and looked for tunes that way.

Nowadays I find tunes on here and look them up, and I scour MP3 sites for promos, new releases, back catalogues etc. And occasionally when I get a good mixed CD (there hasn't been that many great ones lately IMO) I check out those tunes. But for the most part TA and Beatport, AudioJelly, TrackItDown etc.

a little something i like to call: the internet


you should try it sometime.



why, i do believe you're using it as you read this!

i'm almost entirely a record store hunter these days...only online record stores

I go on audiojelly and beatport and listen to samples. Then I keep a written list of artists and tracks that I like. Also I check out threads on TA and look up other people's suggestions. When I first joined here I was pretty new to trance, so I went on those threads and saught every single track you guys posted. Now I have a better idea of my own and everybody else's tastes, so I tend to check out more tracks posted by certain people.

so you do shop hunting and recomendations.

what does it mean to scour mp3 sites for stuff? Are you refering to the mp3 release info sites which announce when tunes are leaked to the net, or are you talking about sites that give downloads like ************* and others?

lol, you cant post that word anymore, that is pretty sweet.

quote:

Originally posted by Zombie0915 so you do shop hunting and recomendations. what does it mean to scour mp3 sites for stuff? Are you refering to the mp3 release info sites which announce when tunes are leaked to the net, or are you talking about sites that give downloads like ************* and others? lol, you cant post that word anymore, that is pretty sweet.

Haha just another term for browsing MP3 download stores and listen to each sample and in different genres and decide which one sounds nice. I usually check out AudioJelly for samples, as Beatport's audio samples are poor quality...

fuck getting records in the mail, always crack

For discovering something new, it's almost always been random chance from music shopping. I see a cover that interests me, see a bunch of names that I've never heard of before, and buy it. If it's a winner, I'll check out more from that artist/series/label. If not, I move onto something else. Nothing fancy about it, but it's been an effective method over the years.

Sometimes I'll hear something from a friend or associate, and get a copy for myself, but not always.

Aside from the odd review recommendation from trusted websites, I rarely use the internet to find new music. I could go on Discogs and discover all the EDM there is to find (and more) but it's not like I'd be able to go on a P2P and download everything, much less listen to it all. So, reading through set lists, Top 10 lists, etc. is a waste of time (besides, so much of it sounds the same anyways ).

fun stuff, keep the replies coming. The gerneal theme seems to be hunting through shops so far.

Anyone care to reveal their music purchasing budget? Mine is a laughable 100 US dollars per year, enough for somewhere between 5 and 7 cds annually, but I could proabbaly get more from online shopping. I feel like it isn't enough to effectively find quality music, escpecially if I do a couple gamble purchases on stuff I am not familair with. I wish I had enough money to buy tunes on impulse, one of these days when I'm done with school and my debts are paid, sigh.

Back in the day somewhat 15 years ago it was random browsing in local record stores.. then years later came da internet and mp3s and they grabbed my interest for several years. Then i got totally sick of them and went fully to vinyls and CDs and i'm still on that path, hardly ever listenin mp3s except for samples in online stores and (p)reviewing friends' productions. I download tunes very rarely, basicly not at all. Digital download stores i use only and i mean only when i know the artist(s) i support, don't get the release on cd or 12" or i can't get it on a cdr in any way.

Online stores i use to find some specific releases i haven't managed to order from any local record store and to get new copies of my worn out and/or scratched vinyls and such. Stores with mint cond'd secondhand releases is the way i tend to go now, new releases i follow as i come by them in the stores so not that actively. Hype around certain tracks don't affect my purchases at all, i couldn't care less what's "in" right now.

Radio/streams or edm related magazines have never been that huge source to me but i use them occasionally.

All'n'all after all these years i still prefer to spend endless hours in actual record stores browsing the racks and make random finds for ridiculously low prices. The hunt is more than half the fun in music collecting as i am an insanely obsessed collector. Too bad the stores here are so small i don't get to browse something different very rarely which leads me to use internet to find yet some more cool online stores. Also a worthy mention is the auction sites which i use alot to find something more rare....

My budget for musical madness has varied between 1-600 Euros a month depending on the worthy releases i have found but lately it's been around 100-150 Euros a month.

I used to spend anywhere between $50 and $100 per month on vinyl, and then it got to the point where I was spending so much on records that buying other stuff was out of the question. I used to spend about $50 a month on CDs, and sometimes I might buy $50 worth of CDs a month IF there are good CDs released. I haven't been impressed with trance CDs, so i've gone for house and breaks, and downtempo more, and even some more obscure rock music and some world music. Since I got CDJs, I've been buying MP3s, so I spend about $50 a month for them, and I am able to get more tracks for that much than I was with even $100 worth of records on vinyl, considering most releases are like $9.99 plus $5.00 on DanceRecords.com, and that was cheap versus the non domestic companies like 4DJsOnly or Chemical records where the records have to be shipped, making the record/shipping cost more $$. I can get the same records for $1.99 or $1.49 a track, or $2.49 or $2.99 for WAV, but I only download in WAV when it's a must have track, one I know I like (rather than just previewing).

Oh and other people is a great way to discover music! i've met plenty of people who have given me recommendations, whether it's online or in real life. This guy who sometimes posts on TA was into progressive breaks and I wasn't that familiar with this sub-genre of breaks, so I checked out some stuff recently from Proton music, as seen in my sig, and really really enjoy it, even more than the new trance releases. Quite good stuff. I found out about BT by this guy that recommended me stuff at a Record Town store before I got into trance, and BT was one of my first foray into this music. I was trying to get stuff that wasn't like the techno I heard at the Detroit Electronic Music Festival the first year it came to Detroit, I just wasn't interested in that sound as much...but I knew I liked electronic music. This was back around 1998. Oh and also other DJs, like stuff on their mixed CDs, as I would have never known about Tiesto back then if it weren't for hearing his remix of "Silence" on Oakenfold's "Perfect Presents Another World" CD. I probably wouldn't have heard much about him until I saw him at Moby's "Area:Two" festival.

I used to use compilations. Find a compilation with some stuff I knew on, and other stuff I wanted (new mixes of tunes I knew, tracks I'd heard about). This way I'd get some reliable stuff and expand the artists I knew. Now I buy less compilations and keep my ear open. I read a lot of music sites, and music forums. Read up on dance music history. Buy music mags to keep up with new tunage. And listen to the recommendations of my friends.

First and foremost, I browse online, I check juno.co.uk and beatport.com every day, looking for new stuff. I've also begun label whoring a bit Been obsessed with the Subtraxx label lately (check out a tune called Basscore ) DI.fm is also great for finding new tracks. Since I sit by my computer about 5 hours every day, I always have some music on, and whenever I have nothing particular to play, I listen to digitally imported, and write down the names of songs I like / record parts of them to ID.

quote:

Originally posted by Zombie0915 Anyone care to reveal their music purchasing budget?

About 75 to 100/month

Last month I got a few singles from amazon:

Perpetuous dreamer - The sound of goodbye
ATB - Seven years
Three Drives - Carrera 2
Major League - Wonder
Blank & Jones - Cream
Astral Projection - Ten

Next on my list next month:

Cosma - People on hold
1200 mics - Heroes of imagination
X-noize - Mental Notes
Xerox and Illumination - XI
Astrix - Eye to Eye

+ a bunch of mp3s

Almost all of the music I listen came as a reccomendation from another person. They will tell me about a song they are currently listening to and I will check it out. If I like the artist I will try to get more music by them.

I get my music by listening to web shows and getting the tracklists on TA. I also browse beatport and audiojelly.

First and foremost for me would be live sets ie radio. My fav. DJ playing my fav style etc etc - but as with all big name DJs, they play stuff that isnt released yet. So I do the next best thing - find music that is somehow related to the unreleased tracks from the tracklist, in hoping that it would be somewhat of a similar style [or to my liking].

For example, I listen to a Christopher Lawrence set, he plays a new unreleased track by Nicolas Bennison, it's not out yet so I check out what label he's on, and that's Propulsion Records, I then begin to research the artists tied to that label and expand from there on.
Like branching out within a branch.

TA and online record stores play a vital role in this. So yahhh, the intarweb is the way to go.


Although this wouldnt entirely be the case for trance, magazines have had help greatly in search for the latest classical, jazz or opera albums. Magazines such as Gramophone and BBCMUSIC give out a demo Cd each issue with samples of the top 10 major releases of the month.
The only major source of classical music exposure is FM radio, and most of the time, they don't play new releases - there may be a handful of segments that do - but no one is there to stream-rip it or whatever [as if anyone would want to do that anyways] for later listening [if you've missed the show].

-Usually beatport, audiojelly, track it down or dance tunes.
-And for cds gemm.com is good, and then theres ebay and amazon.
I use these for live sets:

http://www.mixes.dj/www/downloads/l/50/0
which is $5/month or $20/yr for unlimited downloads of livesets with a couple a hundred live sets to choose. And there's also:

http://www.djsets.co.uk/
this site mails you live sets on CD in compressed format, theres about 7 live sets on the CDr, they have an ok selection. -good buy?? depends on what your after.

That's how I discover music and acquire good tunes.

Reccomendations from people who I think have a similiar style like me (in TA of course), looking in tracklists of DJs I like, and just randomly listen to tunes I see in here, in Top 10 threads and stuff...

wow, now there doesn't seem to be a genereal theme at all, seems half of you are shop hunters and the other half find out about their tunes through radio and recomendations from tracklicksts and magazines and stuff.

This is getting pretty interesting, the recomendations that first get posted on this site must come from those shop hunters though, it looks at if they are the root source of most of the song titles that get posted on here, like they filter everything from the store, then the reast of the population on the site filters through the recomendations given here, and the stuff that remains is what becomes the 'classic' tunes.

Maybe that isn't how it works, but its fun trying to guess.

Oh, also, I often check out www.djmixes2k.com, they offer a lot of mixes for free, and usually there's a tracklist that comes with it. (if not, the people at the forum usually provide one a couple of days after release).

quote:

Originally posted by Zombie0915 wow, now there doesn't seem to be a genereal theme at all, seems half of you are shop hunters and the other half find out about their tunes through radio and recomendations from tracklicksts and magazines and stuff. This is getting pretty interesting, the recomendations that first get posted on this site must come from those shop hunters though, it looks at if they are the root source of most of the song titles that get posted on here, like they filter everything from the store, then the reast of the population on the site filters through the recomendations given here, and the stuff that remains is what becomes the 'classic' tunes. Maybe that isn't how it works, but its fun trying to guess.

i think you would probably find a big difference between the tastes of people that listen to radio / livesets for music...and those that search for it in record stores...

i'd probably say that the people that are store hunters, for the most part, probably have a wider taste range and therefore cannot find all the types of music they want via radio stations and livesets.

I don't like radio simply because you'll only ever hear what the DJ likes.

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