Searching for new music can be a daunting task. Faced with the seemingly never-ending library of music in this world, it’s hard to know where to start. That’s why we’ve compiled three of the best tools for searching for and discovering new music. Happy listening!
Videos by American Songwriter
AllMusic
AllMusic is a good resource if you want to search for new music by genre or have a vague idea of what you’re looking for. In the top navigation bar, under the Discover section, you can search by specific genres depending on what you’re interested in, or simply go to the main Discover page to get recommended styles, moods, and themes.
For example, a featured style might be Bubblegum, with recommendations for The Monkees, The Partridge Family, The Wombles, and Tommy James & the Shondelles. A featured mood could be Nostalgic, introducing Linda Ronstadt, The Kinks, Merle Haggard, and Leon Redbone. While style focuses more on micro-genres, mood is more like the sound and feeling of a song or artist.
Theme takes mood and style and narrows them down more, drawing from specific moments from various songs. The current featured theme is D-I-V-O-R-C-E, introducing listeners to break-up classics like the titular song by Tammy Wynette, “A Picture of Me (Without You)” by George Jones, “Shoot Out the Lights” by Richard and Linda Thompson, and “This is What the Truth Feels Like” by Gwen Stefani.
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Music Map
Music Map is great for finding similar artists by making a cloud map based on a singular performer. The closer another artist’s name is to the searched artist, the more alike their music will be. For example, searching Mitski will create a map with her name in the middle and other artists surrounding it, such as Japanese Breakfast, Angel Olsen, and Faye Webster.
Clicking on any of the other artists will create another map from there. So, choosing Angel Olsen will bring up another cloud map featuring Weyes Blood, Josephine Foster, and Lucy Dacus, among others.
Music Map is part of the Global Network of Discovery, or Gnod, which has created many AI-powered projects. There is also another music project called Gnoosic which will ask you for three bands or artists you already like and generate a band of similar tastes. For example, typing in Mitski, The Mountain Goats, and Fall Out Boy generated the band The Amazing Devil.
Boil the Frog
Boil the Frog is a little more out there in terms of music discovery in that it creates a pathway between two artists in 10 tracks. Powered in part by Spotify, you have the option to save the playlist or post it on Twitter/X. The tagline for Boil the Frog is “create a (nearly) seamless playlist between (almost) any two artists.”
For example, when asked to make a playlist linking Morcheeba to Britney Spears, the program started with “Women Lose Weight” by Morcheeba, then went into “Give it Away” by Zero 7, then “So Easy” by Röyksopp. The playlist transitioned to “I Feel Better” by Hot Chip, to “Chasing Shadows” by Santigold, to “No One Ever Loved” by Lykke Li. Then, “Primadonna” by Marina, “Hard Out Here” by Lily Allen, “I’m Coming Out/Mo Money Mo Problems” by Gwen Stefani, and finally “…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears.
The point of Boil the Frog is to transition listeners from one style of music to another without listeners blatantly noticing the styles are changing.
Other Resources
More places to find new music include:
- Spotify’s New Music Friday playlist
- Apple Music’s New Music Daily playlist
- KEXP – Seattle-based radio station known for broadcasting unique artists
- Radio Garden – Dutch-based music project where listeners can find new radio stations by rotating a Google Earth-type globe
Featured Image by Paul Kane/Getty Images
