The music lover's guide for music lovers to find more music to love music... MUSIC!!!!

Well when I decided to do a music blog, it had originally been my intention to just throw out a couple of reviews of some albums I had recently discovered and wanted to share with the world.  I realized that was stupid, I was stupid, and decided instead to do something unstupidlike.  I will instead share the ways I have come about the music I have come about upon so that you too, may come upon about the...  The er...  So that you can find some good music as well.

             1. Pandora Radio 

Notable discoveries: Portishead, Zero 7, Sufjan Stevens, many more.

I'm not going to say that Pandora is the best method to discovering music.  It has simply been the most effective for me.  The biggest reason behind this is because I have used Pandora longer than any other service.  I spent hours upon hours meticulously tweaking and organizing my major stations and am still not completely satisfied.  Pandora, for me, originally came off as a medium for people who didn't actually own the artists they listen to to be able to listen to those artists streaming.

Unfortunately, as I already owned the discographies of most of the artists I entered into Pandora and was interested completely in finding new music, most of my time was spent getting Pandora to stop playing songs and artists I already knew and loved and to give me new artists who were similar but who I have never heard before.  Pandora's biggest appeal to me was that it pretty much single-handedly introduced me to trip-hop which is now one of my all-time favorite genres.

Biggest Appeal: 

Pandora always seems to know what I like.  It might play songs I'm sick of hearing and artists that I'm already very well acquainted with, but it rarely plays music that I just outright dislike.  When I first started with last.fm it played pretty much all the music I despised.  While Pandora did throw a few off-the-wall suggestions at me like Lady Gaga and Kids Bop 5 on my Modern Rock station, I can usually leave it playing and not have to worry about hearing a song I simply dislike.  I usually only skip through the familiar songs.

Biggest Drawback:
Pandora needs a "discovery mode" option.  When you tick this option, Pandora should completely avoid all of the artists you type into it and only play artists similar to them.  Instead of disliking the songs and risking Pandora being thrown-off thinking you don't like the song based on the sound, there should be an option in the hypothetical discovery mode which lets you say "I'm already familiar with this song/artist."  You reading this, Pandora guys?

Furthermore, when I first started Pandora I had very few stations and therefore liked more artists on the same station.  As I used Pandora more frequently, I created more stations, and my musical taste also changed.  Unfortunately it can be a little tricky to get Pandora to stop playing certain artists.  For example, I once had a catch-all station which was Trip-hop, Alternative, Classic, and Hip-hop music.  I gave all the genres their separate stations but I still get those old artists on what is now a genre-specific station and spend a lot of time trying to get the bands on their rightful station.  Pandora also did not have ads and limited playtime when I first began using it.

2. last.fm

Notable discoveries: Bassnectar, Klaxons, Minus the Bear

last.fm took me a while to actually begin to like.  When I first started to use last.fm it seemed to mock me by playing music I just couldn't stand.  When a friend introduced me to the scrobbling feature everything started to go a lot better.  last.fm went from a stammering new employee suggesting music that was popular based loosely off of my taste to an ex-roadie who toured with some of my favorite bands and was in some indie band I had never heard of who opened for Radiohead and told me "bro, you should totally check out 'so-and-so.'"  

I could even say it went a little overboard.  last.fm plays almost exclusively music I have never heard of.  This is a good thing, but sometimes the music is so foreign to me that I can't really dedicate the necessary time to investigate the band and know if I actually like them or not.

Biggest advantage:
Scrobbling not only shares every track you listen to with people who visit your last.fm profile when you're listening to your mp3 collection, but also shows your favorite radio tracks so that friends can give you suggestions and allows you to look up similar artists all while making last.fm smarter about it's suggestions.  With integration into your favorite mp3 player, there's really no reason you shouldn't have a last.fm account with scrobbling set up.

Biggest drawback:
As I mentioned earlier, last.fm can be a little too foreign at times.  It also seems to get stuck on one genre at a time.  For example there was a month when the recommended radio station that last.fm has for all users played only indie Brit-rock for me.  Exclusively.  British accents are cool and all, last.fm, but what the hell?  

3. Music Blogs (hype machine)

Notable discoveries: A bunch of stuff you wouldn't be familiar with.

I can credit stumbleupon

There is always something new to be heard here.  Tons of great remixes, new tracks that you didn't even know were released yet by your favorite artists, and some great bands to be discovered as well.  

Biggest advantage:

The convenience of listing tracks by dozens, maybe hundreds of blogs is fantastic.  The music comes to you in this way, and all you have to do is hit the play button.  Hype Machine even plays the next track on the page automatically so you don't have to keep clicking around.  

Biggest drawback:

Unless you give the site a lot to work with, you are probably going to be hearing a lot of music you don't care for as well.  The blogs are simply a mass collection and not organized by genre.  It can take a bit of getting used to and customization to shape the site into something you can enjoy listening to without having to skip every other song.  However this is slightly counteracted by the fact that you can pick and choose the songs and blogs you like most to begin filtering the ones you don't like out.

Also...

Check out Grooveshark, Musicovery, and if you're not in the US, Spotify.  Grooveshark allows you to type in whatever track you want and play it instantly.  Musicovery has a very unique interface and you can customize by the mood you're in as well as the genre, but it can be a bit glitchy and you have to pay to get the same sound quality you get for free with sites like last.fm.  

Of course, it also pays to have friends.  Find a friend who likes the same kind of music as you, or try message boards based on the genre, or even twitter.  It pays to know people.

If you feel I've left anything important out, let me know and I may check it out and, if I like it, add it into the blog.