The Best Means to Discover New Music, Co-ordinate to 14 Artists

Karen Elson keeps it one-time-school. Photograph: Michael Thad Carter/Vulture

In the pre-internet dark ages, finding a new ring or vocaliser to obsess over required time and effort. The music didn't only autumn into your lap; yous had to search loftier and low and — shudder — typically pay for it. But as streaming and other technological gifts accept disrupted everything in our culture, the mode we discover new music and artists has become easier. At the same fourth dimension, it's somehow messier than e'er: If music's at our literal fingertips wherever we become, who'southward to say what to printing play on?

We talked to 14 artists at this year'southward SXSW for their recommendations on the best ways to find new music, from making Spotify mixtapes with a lover to keeping track of the coolest record labels.

Streaming
For artists, playlists are paramount. Tei Shi recommends checking out playlists on Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal created by musicians you like, since, chances are, your tastes will align. PWR BTTM are big fans of Spotify'south Collaborative Playlists, which allow you to curate playlists in real time with a group past sharing them with other people. That way your friend could potentially innovate you to a new song or artist on your own playlist. "It can be kind of romantic to make one with a lover," says PWR BTTM'due south Liv Bruce. Adds bandmate Ben Hopkins, "Put your favorite Barry White song on there."

And when all else fails, falling downwardly a YouTube or SoundCloud rabbit hole is yet foolproof. "Sometimes I'll end up on something completely dissimilar that I like on YouTube — 'cause you know YouTube categorizes everything — and so I'll let it play while I'm hanging out at the house," A$AP Ferg says.

Social Media
Streaming platforms often source playlists from artists that originally broke on social media. Artists also suggest paying attention to the artists and songs gaining followings on Twitter and Facebook, since new songs are probable to go viral on those platforms long before it ends upward on a playlist like Spotify'due south RapCaviar. "When anything's really skillful, my Twitter timeline volition permit me know," says Dawaun Parker of AOE. "I follow a good mix of people that are funny and keep their ear to the footing, so when something'south hot, information technology'll unremarkably come up across my way. I got put onto a lot of the alternative R&B coming out of the U.M. through my timeline. "

Or you could be more proactive and find the buzzworthy songs yourself, like singer-songwriter Bibi Bourelly. "A lot of it is stalking people's profiles on Instagram and seeing what they like," she admits. Any your approach, Tinashe says the key is keeping an open up mind and not being a lazy listener: "Y'all have to desire to discover new music. In that location has to be some type of involvement in finding something new and unique." Otherwise you'll be limited to the same ten songs playing on the radio everywhere.

Word of Mouth
Regardless of your own music-finding proclivities, odds are in that location'southward at least i person in your circle who gets off on sharing their new music discoveries with the group. "All my real adept finds are from the homies," Kweku Collins tells us. PWR BTTM's Hopkins agrees: "I'g in a car so much on bout that I often just ask my friends to DJ and ask them what they like. That's the best way I notice music." That advice applies to finding artists that aren't new, besides. "My friend Sonny, a.one thousand.a. Skrillex, really recently introduced me to a band called Death Grips, simply they've been around for awhile and I merely got put onto them in the by year," Bourelly says.

Terrence J, host of this year'due south Woodies at SXSW, relies on his girlfriend Jasmine Sanders for all his music recs now that his days announcing hot new music on BET's 106 & Park are behind him. "My girlfriend, who'south mode cooler than I am, is always playing something new, so I hear new music coming out of the shower," he says. Sleigh Bells' Alexis Krauss's fiancé frequently gives her music suggestions (about recently the ring FRIGHTNRS) because she's "non really good at mining for music on the internet. I'd rather be doing other things than exist on a computer."

Simply if you want the real gems, talk to people older than you. "Music tin exist new to you lot, but not new right now. Information technology can be really fun to inquire people of different generations what they used to get encounter," PWR BTTM's Bruce says. "There are a lot of bands that my parents used to become see that I oasis't necessarily heard of and asking them to dig upwardly stuff similar that is a really fun manner to discover music." A$AP Ferg, who's only recently started educating himself on the greats like David Bowie, says he gets a lot of the music he'south listening to from his fifty-year-old uncle: "His music range is manner deeper and bigger than mine. He'south playing everything from Barry White to Frank Ocean. He has everything on his phone and just plays it in his car. Merely he's also been listening to music forever and he'due south a buyer of music."

Live Shows
Y'all can tell a lot about a new artist from their tape, just in that location's no ameliorate education than seeing the real thing live. Venues that cater to upward-and-coming acts are condign scarcer by the day, merely the DIY scene, PWR BTTM reminds us, hasn't been driven out just yet. "Get to shows when y'all don't know anyone on the neb or simply one person. Become to shows at weird DIY spots. Go encounter someone's first or third evidence. Also, when you come across someone who says they're a musician, have that shit seriously," they say. And though it may exist more inconvenient, they recommend coming early to big-name shows: "Go for the opening bands because that's a band that the creative person you lot're paying to see likes. That's why they brought them on tour."

That's how Sleigh Bells' Krauss finds the majority of her new music, while also scouting for bands that one will day open for her. "Our current opener, Tunde Olaniran, is somebody that we played a prove with in Detroit and didn't know. We were only so excited and enthusiastic most his music," she says. "For me, it's about bodily visceral experiences and seeing somebody and connecting." At SXSW, Karen Elson discovered and fell for the band Temples just by wandering around the festival. "I'm sure they're huge, and they were astonishing. Going to shows is a real investment," she says.

Record Labels
Information technology's a throwback to the days when record labels had a cult post-obit (think Rawkus Records and generations before that), but keeping an eye on who's signed where is notwithstanding a handy fashion to find new music. For Black Lips, it'southward still their most tried and true fashion of discovering quality acts.

"I've always found new music through labels I like, like Bomp! Records, which put out our get-go album," says the Lips' Cole Alexander. "They put out old punk and garage groups from the '60s and '70s. You'd observe their back catalogues — it'southward the same with Norton Records, I'd find their back catalogue and just look through. I guess we have the internet at present, but that's how I've always got my stuff. In one case a characterization establishes itself as something you lot're into, yous can count on them. Low-cal in the Cranium is really proficient."

The Quondam-Fashioned Way
At that place was once a fourth dimension when you had to physically enter a record store and scan the aisles and rows of music to notice something new. Karen Elson remembers those days well: "In the mid- to late-'90s in New York Urban center, there was this local video and music store chosen Kim's Video. It was on St. Mark's Identify and it was where I constitute some of the best music. All the record store kids who worked at that place had such good taste. I would go in there and go Cocteau Twins, the Cure, Yahoo, the Pixies, Nick Cave, all the things that I'm obsessed with." It's less mutual to practice that now, merely Elson says if the opportunity is there, spring at it. "It was only one of the best places and information technology's so deplorable because now I find music online. But in that location was just something about going to the record store and talking to kids whom y'all'd see at all the shows. You lot had then much in common," she says. "I'thou withal a creature of habit. I'm very backwards when it comes to modern-day music — the ways kids find music today. I've liked the same stuff I've liked for years. But I likewise read about artists, cheque out their music, and buy their records."

The All-time Ways to Observe New Music, According to 14 Artists