Best Places to Find New Music

Bandcamp - The marketplace for independent artists. Unlike Beatport, Juno and other music buying platforms, Bandcamp allows full track previews before buying. As well as taking a smaller cut from the artists and labels too. Bandcamp Friday being a great example of this, where every month or so there’s one day where they waive all their fees, so 100% of money for purchases goes directly to the artists. You can search by genre, release date and even location so you can check out local artist’s music.

Social Media - And I’m not just talking about following your favourite artists. There are loads of pages nowadays completely dedicated to showing you new music, or the history of music, or reviving old gems. It’s a goldmine for people who want to discover music new & old. Some of my favourite accounts are below;

@DaMetalMessiah - Grime/History of Grime

@OneFortyBPM - Dubstep/Grime/140

@findingsusan__ - Electronic/Dance/House/Trance/Breaks

@Solomansarchive - Bassline/Grime/140 - History of Baseline

@Fish56Octagon - Trance/Hard House/Electronica/DnB/Garage & More

@patrickhicksmusicstories - Great for people who love music facts and history

@Theonbower - Disco/House/Electro

@Dazedmusic - DnB

@deeptempo140 - Dubstep

@Phonicarecords - Anything Vinyl - Previews

@saintlukez - House/Deep House

@percydigs - House/Techno/Electro/Breaks/UKG/Jungle/140

Obviously, still follow your favourite artists, labels and events to keep up with all their releases, but these are just a few of the people I follow.

Content Creators - Bit of a curveball, I know, but content creators need something to chat over, right? And we’re already on social media so we might as well get something extra out of it. Next time you’re deep in a doom-scroll have a listen to some of the music in the background of the videos. I can’t tell you how many gems I’ve discovered just from taking a second for the little text and the top to rotate. Cooking creators especially are good for this, people along the lines of @andyhearnden & @yungcookgod_ are a great place to start.

Record Shops - If you’re a collector, or just a casual listener, record shops are a treasure trove to find music. Here’s a few I’ve visited abroad, and my favourite local shops;

WaxWell Records - Amsterdam

KillaCutz Records - Amsterdam

Out of Joint Records (@outofjointrecords) - Leicester

Running Circle (@runningcirclerecords) - Nottingham

Rob’s Records - Nottingham

Crate/WhereWax (@where_wax/@crate_____) - Nottingham

Tribe Records (@triberecordsleeds) - Leeds

Plant & Deck (@_plant_and_deck_) - Leeds

Shazam - Ever been in a restaurant or shop and heard an absolute banger come over the speakers? Download Shazam and 9/10 times it’ll find it for you instantly. You can even link it to your Spotify or Apple Music so it creates a playlist with everything you discover.

Radiooooo ‘The Musical Time Machine’ - An amazing app recommended by Ebon Moss-Bachrach (The Bear/The Punisher/The Lake House) in an interview with LadBible. It’s a world map effectively, you pick a country, select a decade, select a combination of ‘Fast’, ‘Slow’ and/or ‘Weird’ and it spits out a random track from your selection. So you can see what music was like from different time periods across the globe. It’s fantastic for finding older music and even better for sampling inspiration. Unfortunately it is no longer free, but the Premium account allows you to create playlists with the music you’ve found, explore curated ‘islands’ (playlists) and even add your own music to their library so it can be streamed by other users.

Spotify - One that is certain to split opinions, but if used right it can be a great tool to find new music. Curated playlists from labels, artists, plus the Song Radio feature means there’s endless amounts to go at. You’ve just got to do bit of digging. My go-tos are the Discover Weekly & Release Radar, although the latter can get clogged up if you follow loads of artists. Something ridiculous like 250,000 songs are uploaded to Spotify every day, your next favourite artist has to be in there somewhere, surely. I unfortunately can’t comment on if Apple Music does the same, as I don’t use it.

Have any tips and tricks to finding new music? Let me know through the submit page!