Where Does He Find Such Wonderful Bands!!??!!

Every now and then I am asked where I find out about new music, especially some of the obscure bands I talk about here.

Music review-wise, I lean heavily on Pitchfork. Although I have railed about them and their tendency to revel in putting down bands they deem as unworthy (though I admit they don't do this as often as they used to) the fact they do five album reviews a day gives plenty of opportunity for me to learn about new bands, especially ones that I likely have never heard of. Many times the review references other bands that are obscure, which to me kind of defeats the purpose of seeing x-is-like-y. But you know, whatever. They also have a really good feel for new metal that is coming out.

I also think the AV Club does a great job of reviews and interesting music-related articles. Though they are affiliated with The Onion, they have a great batch of serious music writers. An interesting thing they do at the AV Club is compose a list of 25 songs of varying popularity and invite a band to come in and cover that song. They video record it, cross it off the list and put it on the site. The next band then has to select from what's left, until only 1 song is left and some band is left covering a turd...or a beautiful piece of art.

One writer I especially like is Steve Hyden. He is currently the main music writer for Grantland but spent time with the AV Club and still does reviews for Pitchfork. I think he's the best rock writer out there right now, especially since Chuck Klosterman doesn't seem to write about music anymore, and he only wrote about metal anyway (nothing wrong with that).

To see what is about to come out I will peruse the Pause & Play site. This is basically a digital version of the old record store upcoming-releases-chalk-board. Well, I guess it is nothing like that but you get the idea. It goes pretty far into the future, usually a good two or three months, so I use it to just stoke my anticipation.

Spotify has a "New Releases" section though it's usually not very informative. I have been exposed to a couple of new records and artists there. Friends on Spotify will send me stuff they like and I will do the same. Following bands on Facebook and Twitter lets me know when new stuff comes out and bands that those artists are digging. I am also part of an old fashioned email distribution list of friends that talk about music both new and old. Sometimes the best way to find out about something is old fashioned word of mouth!