How to Find New Music
Falling Behind On Current Music?
Do you find that it's hard keeping up with music these days? There always seems to be someone new coming along that you've never even heard of, or some new song by a current artist that you didn't hear until it got old. Today there are many other media outlets available to discover music, it's not just radio and TV. There's the internet, and with the internet there are numerous ways you can easily find current music.
Whether you want to stay on top of things or are simply bored and want to find new music to listen to, this article is for you. It's always fun discovering new music, and you should never only stick to one genre. I started out liking nothing but pop, but gradually moved towards all genres including metal and country. The way I see it, current music is popular for a reason, millions of people enjoy it, so you more than likely should too. I will not go over how to discover underground or indie music, only mainstream. Some might feel that it's unnecessary since the music is already popular, but its easy for a song to slip under your nose every now and then.
Billboard publishes weekly lists of current songs under many genres. There's the Hot 100 list which gives you a list of the 100 most popular songs on the radio right now (in the USA) encompassing all genres. There's also a Billboard list for Canada, and many other countries such as the UK have similar charts that you can find simply through a Google search. What's great about Billboard is that it has many more specific lists for genres like Hip-hop/R&B, Country, Rock, Dance, etc... So if you really want to find say, a new country song, you would just look under that chart. There's even an "Uncharted" chart for new artists that aren't mainstream yet and still gaining exposure.
The Billboard 200 is a list of current best-selling albums, so if you like a specific artist or want to try something new you can check out the list and see if you'd like to buy any new albums. Billboard has been around for many years and is probably the best reflection of the popularity of current music. The site also publishes various articles that feature lists such as "best songs of summer 2011," or "best songs of the 90's." Checking out this site every now and then will more than guarantee that you are up to date with current music, and you may even discover something that hasn't even gotten popular yet.
Vevo is a music video site that is also linked with Youtube. Once you are on the site the front page has a What's Hot list that lists the 10 most popular current music videos at the time. You can go to the bottom and click All Videos which will take you to a page with all the current videos. Most mainstream artists have their videos posted on VEVO, so you will likely find anything on there that you would see on MTV. You can also browse specific categories at the side for various genres, and you can even browse videos from artists. One thing about VEVO is that it specializes mostly in current music, all new music videos get uploaded, but the older the video is the more likely it is to not be uploaded on it. VEVO is slowly filling their database with older songs, but it's a slow process. For our purposes here you only need to browse new music anyways so that shouldn't be a problem. A plus is that all the videos are really good quality, and most new ones are in HD as well. It's completely legal as well, though some videos aren't available in certain regions outside of USA.
iTunes
If you go to the iTunes store, there is a top 10 list of all the current most downloaded songs. If you click on any of the individual songs, you can preview them for either 30 seconds or 1.5 minutes, which should be enough to tell you if you like the song or not. You can also go listen to it on YouTube in full to see if you like it or not. iTunes also compiles lists for most downloaded albums so you can see which artists have come out with a new album or have a good current album out right now. iTunes also recommends songs and artists to you based on what is in your current library which can often be helpful.
Grooveshark is a cloud based music player that came out about a year ago. By cloud I mean that you don't actually download any songs but you can listen to them whenever you want as long as you are connected to the internet. Grooveshark is free, and 100% legal. There are paid options that allow you to stream music offline and such as well. Grooveshark has a Popular playlist that allows you to stream music that everyone else is listening to, mainly new music that would be heard on the radio. The songs are good quality, and you can listen to them in their entirety. You can even create playlists for yourself. Other similar services include Spotify, or the new iTunes cloud.
Please note that all of the aforementioned methods are legal and follow emerging online trends in the music industry.
