How to Find New Music

If you’re a Generation Xer, what music speaks to you these days?

Actually, do you even listen to today’s music, or do you find yourself exclusively listening to artists and bands you enjoyed in your teens and 20s?

If it’s the latter, you’re not alone — and one reason might be the relative difficulty of discovering new music in 2015.

It’s true that a massive amount of music has never been more available or inexpensive via streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora, not to mention iTunes or its sister streaming service, Apple Music. The recent loss of Zune hardly tilted the music landscape.

[lz_ndn video= 29707971]

But it’s one thing to have access to so much new music. It’s something else entirely to navigate all of those options to find what you like. For all we’ve gained in access, we’ve lost just as much if not more in curation.

The problem isn’t limited to Gen Xers, but it has particular resonance with that demographic. Like baby boomers, Gen Xers absorbed most of their musical influences from the radio or MTV when they were young.

Terrestrial radio — then and now — could only expose you to a limited amount of music at any given time, but it was a widespread delivery system. And when MTV arrived in 1981, the impact on Gen X was massive. In the ’80s and early ’90s, long before it became a repository for inane reality shows, MTV was the place for teens and 20-somethings to discover the latest music.

When MTV arrived in 1981, the impact on Gen X was massive.

As of 2015, terrestrial radio has largely taken a backseat to satellite radio, which is decidedly more segregated. Listeners can lock on to one type of music and avoid everything else. And new technology has made it simple to exclusively listen to streaming services, which also tend to segregate music into narrow niches.

The current dynamic also makes it tougher on new artists, according to Zach Miller, who works for a Chicago-based company that licenses music to corporate advertisers and entertainment companies. That’s why getting a song into a national ad or a TV show, movie or video game is a great way to break a young band, he said.

“The market is so saturated … There really is no curator anymore, no DJ on the radio people trust for new music,” said Miller, content specialist for Music Dealers. “But advertisers know people are looking for new music, and they’re actively integrating music discovery into campaigns.”

Randal Wark, a Gen Xer who contributes reviews to the Montreal Rocks website, said he feels most curated lists “are too bland and concentrate on a Top 40-style format. [They] only play what’s popular.”

There really is no curator anymore, no DJ on the radio people trust for new music.

Any Gen Xer who loves finding new music knows the pain of hanging out with friends of similar ages who only listen to music they enjoyed in high school or college, or shortly thereafter.

They say, “There’s no good music these days, ” which is no truer now than when your parents said it, or when their parents said it. There’s always good music.

But what’s the solution? There’s no simple single step, but here are some actions you can take to find new music you like:

• Music-recommendation apps: Of course there’s an app for that — more than one, in fact. A simple Google search will list apps that can guide you to new music based on your general preferences, letting you dip your toe in the water without going too far afield of your usual preferences. One such popular (and impressively simple) app is Gnoosic. (You know it’s good because, like most popular apps, it has a ridiculous name.)
• Streaming services themselves: Pandora and Spotify, among several others, have radio-playlist options that use algorithms to deliver music based on artists you already like. Apple Music, which recently absorbed Beats Music, created a global radio station called Beats 1, featuring content programmed by well-renowned (and actually human) DJs.
• Your local independent coffeehouse: Sure, the soundtrack itself often will be a playlist coming from the barista’s phone. That’s fine. Independent coffeehouses tend to play the freshest, most interesting music of the moment, and it’s rarely too weird, because that would drive off customers. And if you don’t feel like asking the barista what’s playing, smartphone apps such as Shazam and SoundHound will figure it out for you.
• Sirius/XM: If you’ve got the paid satellite service, check out two stations: XMU and AltNation. XMU is “new indie rock” and AltNation is “new alternative rock.” The latter each week does the Alt18 countdown, featuring the top dozen and a half most requested songs. And XMU does a weekly list called the Download 15, often featuring debuts of brand-new songs in the list that top DJs think are must-haves. Even if you don’t have the service, you can still see the lists and check them out on your own.