I’ve used both Apple Music and Spotify in recent years and while their discovery is okay, it always plays it safe. As if they’ve made a genre that is just for me and won’t play anything outside of that. How do I expand my music horizons?
Radio Paradise They have Main, Rock, Mellow and Global streams. Been listening since they started and Global is currently my favourite.
I stalk strangers mostly. I search on rateyourmusic or bandcamp for albums I enjoy, then I check the people that like that album too and what else they like, and I give that a listen.
Radio free fedi is the best for discovery. All kinds of stuff from all over the fediverse
Interestingly, I feel like I’ve found more “new” music using Spotify’s Release Radar playlist instead of their Discover Weekly playlist. I’ll typically (and aggressively) mark things as like/don’t like in those playlists and add what I like to my own “Testing” playlist to see what sticks to me. Release Radar tends to have more likes than Discover Weekly does, despite what the two are named, and it’s providing new artists on top of existing ones I’m already a fan of.
That’s usually good enough for me, though the occasional time I’m listening to the radio or a song comes on over the speakers when I’m out and about gets a quick Shazam from me to know what it was.
I spend a lot of time curating from my discover weekly and release radar. But if I really like a band, ill go into the similar bands at the bottom and sometimes I find a few good things there too. A key thing is I aggressively tell Spotify when I don’t like something, marking songs or artists as hidden.
What are you into/what do you want to get into?
