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I am always looking to add tunes to my 'faves' playlist (a playlist strictly limited to songs that rate 9 or 10/10). I'm not talking about hipster 'no one's ever heard of this before' stuff. Just solid, well played, well made music from any genre or time period.

My best sources are:

Friends recommendations Pandora KCRW WFMU

any hidden stations/services/anythings?

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For me its usually via people/DJs whos taste or genres I like eg Giles Peterson Worldwide show on BBC (download at alldj.com) or Stinky Jim on BFM - they find the gems, and publish tracklists for their shows so its then easy enough to find & get more music from the artists that appeal...

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Check out Radio Nova. They've been broadcasting out of Paris since 1981 and always play a nice eclectic mix. It's a good way to discover new music. Ledjam Radio is another very good website-based radio station, though unlike Radio Nova they don't have a feed that plays through iTunes so you have to listen through the browser. But it's a cool station with lots of good old and new tunes. I also use Spotify a lot and often discover new music by browsing through other peoples' playlists.

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There's nothing like a well-curated radio show. Plus, it seems like every radio station on the planet is online now. Some places I go for things I never knew I never knew:

WKCR (wkcr.org) - Phil Schaap is a walking, talking jazz-cyclopedia.

WFMU (wfmu.org), Beware the Blog, and the Free Music Archive

WFUV (wfuv.org)

East Village Radio

Even though the free service is crammed with ads, I like searching Grooveshark for keywords. Like, how about every song ever made about socks. "Oh yeah, I haven't listened to King Missile in forever!" This can last days...

-david

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No matter what genre of music you listen to, you'll find something here:

http://www.delicious.com/tag/mp3blog

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Living in Canada I can't get Pandora, so I use Last.fm's Similar Artists. It's works out pretty well most of the time.

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  • Pandora's a web site. How is it not available in canada? Oh you silly Canadians...
    – David Rovin
    May 4, 2011 at 18:10
  • He speaks the truth, Pandora is not available outside of the USA: "Dear Pandora Visitor, We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative. "
    – Bill Mellow
    May 4, 2011 at 18:34
  • Um... it's called IP blocking. Because of american copyright legislation Canadian subscribers are not allowed to access services like Pandora and Hulu. The BBC does it with their iPlayer, or whatever it's called. It's more of a pain in the ass to get around than the service is worth. I thought everybody knew that.
    – g.a.harry
    May 4, 2011 at 18:36
  • In fact, I remember the day Pandora started doing it. I'd been using for 6 months back in 2002 or 2003 before it got quashed. It totally sucked.
    – g.a.harry
    May 4, 2011 at 18:38
  • There are a lot of good websites like that. Bloody licensing! Spotify is a good example. It's an awesome site but only works in a handful of countries.
    – Colin Hunter
    May 4, 2011 at 19:40
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http://www.thesixtyone.com/ can be pretty good.

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  • I LOVE the sixty one.
    – Dave Matney
    May 5, 2011 at 3:27
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Aquarius Records in SF has a great weekly email and they always provide samples to playback on their website: http://www.aquariusrecords.org/

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  • You beat me to it! Not only am I 4 blocks away from Aquarius, its website is one of my top sources for new releases. Both online and (amazingly) even in-store, they review almost everything they sell. One of the best record shops in the world, IMO!
    – NoiseJockey
    May 6, 2011 at 13:41
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KEXP Seattle. You can stream all of the DJ's shows but my personal fav is John Richards. Independant radio. No commercials. Wide variety.

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Two well-known,free resources for a wide-variety of music: Youtube and ITunes Radio

Cheers!

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I fell down an internet rabbit hole one day and wound up at http://wefuckinglovemusic.blogspot.com/

While I'm not entirely hip to having to download a mediafire .zip of the album to listen (I would prefer that they stream and offer a way for you to buy), it's a great jumping off point for adding some new artists to my collection.

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The Hype Machine is pretty good, it's a music blog aggregator. It's mostly on the eclectic side, but found lots of good artists there. http://hypem.com/

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Have you tried Ping? Might be a good way to find artists on there... I don't use it myself, but it might be worth checking out.

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    Come to think of it, I've never met anyone who's actually used it.
    – g.a.harry
    May 5, 2011 at 1:46
  • Neither have I.
    – Dave Matney
    May 5, 2011 at 3:27
  • lol. Nor have I. Funny how that is.
    – Utopia
    May 5, 2011 at 5:07
  • Ping is fairly useless, but the genius recommendations in itunes can be quite good.
    – Bruce
    May 9, 2011 at 11:31
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Just buy all the TV On The Radio albums and you should be all set for a while :)

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Itunes Genius is how i find most of my new music or in the suggestions on youtube :)

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Pandorra is nice since they suggest music on it's content's not it's listeners.

Youtube - any good music channels. (like this excellent bass music channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/NeurofunkGrid) Youtube has a nice algorithm for their suggestions - always nice finds, but always more of the same too. There's people posting their vinyl collection on youtube too.

Sharity used to be a nice way to find rarity/oddity and niche stuff. http://www.kwsnet.com/music_weblog_sharity.html

Social Media - When working in sound desifn / music you'll most likely have many people in your friend list (if on a network) with a good taste in music. Plus a passion for it, which often means they post about what they like. (in my experience anyway)

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One of the two radio stations I listen to here in New Orleans is WWOZ. They stream their shows @ http://www.wwoz.org/ . It is a jazz and heritage station/blues + New orleans local musicians. Really cool station great DJs that bring in their private collections of vinyl/tapes/live recordings etc. It is listener supported with a couple fundraiser drives per year so you do not get the BS of top 10 playlists that just repeat like 90% of the current radio stations . It is really cool because each DJ has their own show/style/genre and love music so you get some out of the ordinary groups both past and present and sometimes you get interesting did you know facts about the musicians.

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Sadly, I am down to having two people who's music opinion I can always trust and get suggestions from them from time to time. The third and fourth source are some of the mixes by DVNT of Darkfloor, who canes the sort of twisted darkness I prefer... then there's the odd accidental shit I come across on my own during my increasingly rare chances for musical based explorations.

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I'm a huge fan of 8tracks.com

It's a website full of user-generated playlists, searchable by artist or tag. I've found a handful of fantastic playlists I listen to as I'm falling asleep. I dig it better than Pandora because it does not utilize the music genome project, but instead is completely user generated. Sure there are plenty of strangely constructed playlists, but the mystery is part of the fun!

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