Find New Indie Music
Do you love Indie music but can't seem to find anything but the same top 40 Clear Channel music? Want to find something different? It's easy to find great new music and expand your tastes; all you have to do is search the right places
Steps
- Listen to podcasts (which can be listened to on many supported digital music players). There are a lot of great Indie music podcasts like Songs for Jenna, TartanCast, the CBC Radio 3 Podcast, NPRs Tiny Desk Concerts, Morning Becomes Eclectic, Tanfastic Podcast or Fauvedoucet.com. These podcasts can be found at any of the following sites and more: Google Reader, iTunes, iPodder, podcastalley.com, and any podcast app for smartphones or added via RSS feed.
- Listen to online radio stations. You can use these sites to find new artists based on your own personal tastes. College radio stations are also great.
- Traditional radio can also prove useful: indie radio stations like XFM or K-ROCK2 usually have future-music shows on late nights.
- Read indie magazines. Spin is a great one.
- Visit sites online that make the process of finding music easier for example garageband.com which allows independent bands to compete for popularity. Elbo.ws, Contrastream.com, the Hype Machine (www.hypem.com), Choosik (www.choosik.com), and Pandora.com (The Genome Music Project) is also dedicated to helping indie fans find new music. Myspace is also a great way to discover new bands and preview their music.
- Visit music blogs like Indie Music Finds, Albumcorner, Good Weather For Airstrikes, Pop Candy from USA Today, Stereogum, Pitchfork and IndieUpdate.
- Go to independently-owned record stores. If you like what they are playing, ask them what it is and buy it. Some online record stores also offer reviews of latest releases . You can also just talk to the people who work there and ask what they listen to.
- Go to local concerts. Check the paper and figure out what venues near you host live music on a regular basis. At the concerts pay attention to the artists that open for the main act to find new artists who haven't reached wide-spread appeal.
- Try looking through the rosters of popular indie labels. Many bands tend to congregate on the same label. Well known indie labels include Sub Pop (A great one. Has Fleet Foxes, Iron & Wine, The Head And The Heart), Merge, Matador, Hardly Art, Jagjaguwar, Ace Fu, Fat Cat, Domino, Almost Gold, and many other smaller ones. Even if the bands aren't necessarily related by genre or scene to any degree (other than the fact that they're on "indie" labels), listening to a random batch of music is a great way to expand your palette.
- An excellent site is Last.fm. You may put in an artist you like and you can listen to streaming music similar to said artists style. You might just find something you like in the mix!
Tips
- Don't force yourself to like something because it is "indie". Indie is independent, the same goes for your music taste.
- Remember that just because you listen to "indie music" that doesn't necessarily make you "indie". If you really think about it, being indie is almost another form of conformity.
- "Indie" as we know it now came about in the late eighties, but there are plenty of much older bands that were a huge influence on later indie bands and are seldom played on classic rock stations. For starters, check out the Velvet Underground, Big Star, last.fm, and the Stooges.
- Realize that it doesn't matter whether something is Indie or not. Just listen to whatever it is you like.
- Listen to online stations from other countries. You may discover a band you really love before everyone else does. Just because a song is in another language, doesn't mean you can't appreciate it.
- Make sure not to arbitrarily choose bands just because they're obscure or artsy. A mix of popular and lesser-known bands is always a good thing, especially if you actually appreciate them. Eventually you'll find yourself with your own unique tastes and roster of favorite bands.
- There are many independent music distribution sites out there now where you can stock up on huge amounts of original mp3s for free.
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