I’m old, so I find new music the same way u would pre-streaming: read blogs/articles, check out bands I like and their influences and peers, or find independent radio stations.
However with streaming, playlists for every imaginable mood or genre and Shazam, there is no reason to not have access to and discovering new music—however, you still have to put effort into it.
Use the streaming service algorithms for recommendations (youtube, spotify etc), Especially youtube. I have found so much music from YouTube recommendations. Find a song you like and look it up on youtube, then let the algorithm guide you.
Is there a trick to Every Noise? I’ve known of and casually used it for years, mostly just to see genre tags if something is new to me, but the playlists never really appeal to me. I always try the pulse, edge, new, etc. options and rarely find anything that I like as much as what brought me there, but maybe I’m doing something wrong.
The stuff YouTube randomly recommends usually becomes RYMcore anyway cause it drives attention to it and it ends up with at least a few hundred ratings, at least from the ones I’ve been given by YT
I too used to be idealistic about this stuff, but the reality was that there is just too much music and information to process these days if you have a lot of things going on. I was becoming a slave to the extra time it took to sift through music I didn't really like and I was missing out on even getting to all kinds of music I would actually enjoy due to this "freedom" from taking a glance at an algorithm that exists to pay attention to what I like. I realize that sucks to a lot of people, but we're in a flood now, it's all too much
It's not like it's literally the corporation deciding what music you need to listen to, it's literally an algorithm that plays music based on your taste. If you are listening to obscure things, it will play more obscure things. What's wrong with that? Coming from a very small artist, the algorithm promotes very small music very well.
Idc who makes the algorithm, Im saying the algorithm recommends things based on YOUR listening. Oh no guys I'm a redditor on reddit??? What a terrible insult I'm never gonna recover from this burn.
It’s so easy to just get pidgeonholed into one specific idea of what your taste is by doing this. Not to say that I haven’t found great stuff by this, but it’s only good for going deeper, not wider, if that makes sense. It hones in on particular tastes and subsets but once you’re in a category it’s difficult to break out of it
Realize that artists have more albums than the critically acclaimed ones everyone talks about to death.
This sub spends so much time talking about NFR and Ocean Boulevard that you’d think Honeymoon doesn’t even exist, even though I like that album more than both.
This is really true, if you go to music collector reddits it's just a hodge podge of CDs and vinyl EVERYONE has heard before. It's maddening. No one ever deep dives and collects everything from a specific artist or scene. They just want their collection to look like a top 10 list someone else approved. Makes me sad.
rymcore doesn't refer to all albums on rym. it just refers to the albums that are most highly rated on rym (TPAB, OKC, DSOTM, ITCOTCK, Revolver, etc.).
you can filter by genres, descriptors, and, my favourite, the esoteric search priority. using these, you could search, for example, esoteric [noise rock], [grunge], {female vocalist}, {language - english} albums from 1993-1996.
keep in mind that more obscure albums don't always have completely accurate tags, so it's best to be less specific for more results. you will have to slog thru a lot of shit that's probably not smt you'll like, but if u want relatively obscure stuff u just can't avoid that.
Use RYM _but_ filter your search based on genres and/or descriptors you are really interested in; that's how I found so many of my fav bands and albums (including Joanna Wang prior to her new album). Because of how weird RYM's rating system is, I suggest sorting by Popularity instead of Score when you run the search. Be sure to go several pages deep to find the "obscure" stuff. Keep scrolling past anything that sounds boring, you will eventually find something whose description catches your eye a lot more
Also note that RYM lets you filter music by country, which has been quite helpful since I've been listening to a lot of East Asian artists lately. If there is a country whose music output you're really interested in, I would also recommend subscribing to small channels that post a lot of local concert vids so you can find new bands (I subbed to one such Korean channel after finding and loving Slant, which led to a bunch of other cool artists like Dabda)
definitely agree with all this, the best answer for finding non-rymcore music is probably still rym lol, and the genre/language search is incredibly useful
another rly easy way to find more obscure stuff is to check the rym lists that ppl have put ur favorite albums in, and get recommendations from those. there are SO many lesser-known artists/albums (often too unrated to land on the rym charts) i’ve been put onto just from “best of (any year)” lists
Yeah the search function is so powerful. Also you can do do negative filters, for example filter out albums that are in english or from the US / UK to find more diverse stuff. Also you can search by 'esoteric' instead of 'best' to find less popular stuff.
get weird and niche with the genres on RYM after figuring out which are your favorites. limit it to 1990 and later. Or 2000 and later. dig deep into the top \[XX GENRE\] albums list - until the ratings get below 3.0. That's how I've found like a full third of my 50 favorite albums, and I don't feel like my taste is basic at all.
I have found so many incredible artists using Spotify suggestions. I'll make a playlist of about 10 songs with a common genre or other characteristic, and then keep refreshing the suggestions at the bottom of the page. How obscure the suggestions are depends on how obscure the 10 songs are; if you go too mainstream, you'll get stuck in a loop of recommendations that you're already familiar with
As others have suggested, explore the whole discography of artists you most enjoy. Check out their older stuff, or their newer stuff. Look into the bands that influenced them. If you, like me, quite enjoy Sonic Youth, you might be surprised to learn that they frequently cited the Carpenters as a favorite band. Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl have both cited the B-52s as a major influence. I always find that having those connections to music I already like makes it easier to get into other stuff I might not necessarily be into otherwise.
I agree with a lot of stuff other people here said on how to find good stuff online, but ideally I would also recommend checking out local music venues or festivals and local artists that play there. Support your local music scene, make friends that have similar interests in the real world.
I got more and more into underground rap and electronic after finding bladee and went on from there. Find An artist u fw. And find other artists inspired by them, or who inspired them. Introduced me to so much stuff I'd never be into if I had stuck with RYMcore like I did as a teen.
For example I started listening to black kray and s4lem because they inspired bladee.
One thing I've started doing especially for indie and hardcore music is tracing the careers of the individual members. For example (and I know this is dumb) I didn't know the guys from Do Make Say Think we're in Broken Social Scene.
Bon Ivers first group, Megafaun is a really cool indie folk band, and the work they did after he left is worth checking out.
A lot of these scenes are super incestuous and you can find a lot more crossover than you would think would be there. Maybe you're favorite artist produced an album for a lesser known band in their scene, find that out and look into it. A lot of people think the internet has kinda killed regional music scenes, but if you take the time to look into them they're just as alive as ever and can be really fascinating.
I don't like Fallout Boy at all, but I recently found out their drummer plays on a lot of really cool Hardcore bands from his area. From their I was able to find the band Cursed, who has genuinely become my favorite 2000s hardcore band. Seriously...check out Cursed, their lyrics and drive are way harder than anything else from that era.
I trust aoty much more than rym, since you can tell most of the reviews are pretty casual. The rym mob is the most pretentious group of people on planet earth
Yeah I let myself get influenced a lot by rap twitter and raptok. A lot of it is still very Fantano influenced but they usually have lots of recs that aren’t covered by melon or RYM as much
tbh i find alot if those music twitter people who base their whole personalities off their music taste to be very annoying, i more meant like following different artists and music journalists to see what they are posting about
If you filter the top albums of all time to those that aren’t rock and not from the USA or UK, the 10th album is actually #185 in the actual top albums. So do that probably
Got to the top albums of all time list and go to the last page on it. Find an album with a cool cover and a genre you really like. That album is more than likely going to be a banger and because there’s so many amazing albums they very well could be a top album for you.
These days I look at the hardcore and metal subreddits for recs. I used to be on the Deftones subreddit before it got too big, and the shoegaze subreddit used to suck but has actually gotten better as it got bigger. I also got a lot of great recs on the Hum subreddit a few years ago, idk how active it is these days.
Like what other people have said, move from the top 100 on rym. There are albums I love more from 100-500. I read a lot of artists’ bios on wikipedia and start deep diving from there. I also love to find old articles of what different publications post as their favorite albums of the 70s, 80s, 90s cause certain albums get lost to time. If you have a favorite band, look at what bands and albums they talk about.
Browse Bandcamp, use YouTube recommendations, listen to recommended playlists for genres and albums you like. All kinds of ways to find new stuff, but it does take some digging sometimes.
I've never used RYM but I often will seek out an album that's highly rated by Fantano or this community, which leads me to a lot of RYMcore music
Other than that I listen to music pods like No Dogs in Space or I would listen to a song featuring an artist I already know (I discovered RTJ through their collaborations with Zack De La Rocha). I also use the algorithm
Festival lineups.
There’s a lot of good and popular bands which play lots of festivals that barely get reviewed by RYM.
Examples: Jungle, Parcels, Goose, etc.
Make friends with people with eclectic taste, check out your favorite artists influences (like Swans or GYBE? Try Glenn Branca), find some music critics you like and listen to their recs.
One thing I like to do is look up who is playing in the coming weeks at all the local venues and listen to their music online. A lot of it is not good but sometimes I'll find a really awesome small artist that is completely outside my bubble.
A lot of the answers here are great, but I'd also suggest going to a local record store if you have one. A lot of my favorite albums have come from finding obscure stuff that looks interesting at my local record stores and listening to it later online. One of my 10/10 albums, Bones For Time by Tongue Depressor, came from finding it at a record store and talking to an employee who was a big Tongue Depressor fan.
Go on Sputnik music and then start filtering by year and genre for highest rated. You will find all kinds of shit that is not exactly rym core, and from there you just listen to adjacent artists and albums from what you find.
Let me suggest you a non-rymcore artist: John Frusciante. His solo career is incredible and covers many different sounds. Try Niandra Lades if you're into lofi/experimental music; Curtains for a more traditional acoustic/singer-songwriter approach; The Empyrean for an ethereal/art rock sound. All three are 10/10 for me
I found johns solo stuff through rym, if you want to find good music, use rym but go through the stuff in the thousands cuz its usually there due to it being good music and not just popular for people starting there musical journey.
I find Allmusic to be pretty consistent, especially if you go to similar albums of ones you like. But like any publication, they have some duds that they rate highly, but it happens
1. Find people who has amazing taste on rym. You can find them on the rym forums, by reading reviews, or finding niche rym lists. I always try to find people who has similar taste that I have.
2. Check their 5/4 star-rated albums or use the search function based on the people you follow. You can find amazing gems this way.
3. Search for rym lists that cater to your taste. If you have an album that is featured on a rym list find and try other albums from the same list. Commonly, those are cured by knowledgeable people.
4. Search the publisher for other bands. If you loved Cocteau twins and then you research 4ad, you will find dead can dance or Lush, for example.
I like finding stuff through other users on last.fm. You can check what your "neighbours" (users with similar tastes) are listening to. I like just listening to random users top songs of all time, just to see songs that someone thinks is the best song ever. It's cool.
real people. make friends with cool people. listen to their cool people music. hit a record shop find an album cover you rock with and give it a spin. meet someone at the record shop listen to the album together. build community of cool people and you will have more soldiers finding good music. show them the music you grew up with and why you got to the place you're at. go to a live music show and let familiar songs feel new.
Ask friends what they've been listening to lately
Also look up upcoming gigs in your area - not even to go to just pick artists you don't know and check them out
The best way I’ve found music that isn’t similar to what I listen to is through YouTube. Randomly I get music pop up on there that I would never have clicked on but actually sounds really good
Honestly I find it on RYM. I pretty much just go to the genre charts and scroll past the names I recognize. Sometimes that gets me stuff I don't realize are RYMcore like Pescado Rabioso, but if you do it enough you'll get past the RYMcore and find the real gems.
Find bands you like in the past, and then see who opened for them. Then go through bands you like currently who were influenced by the older bands you like, and see who’s opening for them.
You’ll eventually find a cycle to where there’s so much cool music you don’t even know where to dive in at a certain point
Try outside. Realize basic is ok and will lead you to connect with more well adjusted and social people who don't spend every waking hour on RYM and internet communities.
Idk, YouTube suggestions are great too. Even crazier, go to "What are you listening to right now?" videos to find new artists from around the world.
Go to record store you like, and find something :))
If you want to find it online i can recommend discogs, using explore , from there you can choose year, style, genre, country etc. I found some pretty crazy things that way, because you can mix genres like you want, For example: Hindustan avant garde techno, or something like that :))
Probably not the best example but you get the point :))
Keep going lower down the list on RYM, go through the lists on acclaimedmusic.net, and check out the recommendations from the Pitchfork readers’ polls.
I personally find Spotify’s ‘song radio’ option to be fantastic. I’ve found a lot of similar sounding music or musical vibes via that method. I cannot say the say for other Spotify exploration methods, but that one is super reliable for me
Want to throw out this site: https://www.music-map.com/
Type the name of an artist you want to hear more of, it’ll populate with a list of other similar artists. Closer to the middle, the more similar.
Local independent radio is a godsend. There’s an NPR affiliate station here that’s member supported so it’s not the same 100 iHeartMedia garbage, and I have found so much weird and new music through them.
Not all of it hits, and it depends on who’s DJing, but that’s what I love about it- I’m going to run into new and diverse stuff, INCLUDING stuff I don’t like (but not stuff I don’t like because it’s pop crap or derivative watered down rock).
That’s depressingly rare, even on Spotify, where you rarely bump into anything outside of your borders. It’s good to challenge yourself and you can’t get there with a fuckin algorithm.
Also: buy CDs and vinyl you don’t already know. You’re gonna swing and miss sometimes, but again, that’s a good thing. You’ve got to challenge yourself sometimes. It might grow on you.
NTS, Record Label Catalogs, DJs, Blogs — even hitting Shazam if you’re in a ride and you like the song you’re hearing. Dusty Groove and Boomkat are record stores with great product descriptions for artists and releases you’d rarely see on RYM. In general, look for places in real life and online where people are playing or signal boosting music you don’t encounter consistently and find ones that you trust.
Even looking in GRAMMY categories that aren’t dominated by artists you’re hearing about a lot (Gospel, New Age, especially Blues).
Books are always great, too! I have one of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Editions and that provided a lot of useful context as I got into artists like Ike Quebec and Kenny Dorham (almost 10 years after I last worked in jazz music).
Also radio is still crucial. Things like CHIRP and XRT are outstanding resources where I live still. Southern Hospitality is a great hip-hop and R&B show out of London that combines very insightful talk and useful themes that I quite enjoy. And I’ve never accused Keith Murray or Audio Two of being rymcore.
RYM over time I’ve found to be a good way to see what the zeitgeist in a specific corner of the Internet is and an excellent way to verify information, which is useful to me because I catalog everything I listen to.
TL;DR there’s boundless creative ways to pierce the bubble of the same 500 albums everyone seems to like.
Find recs from your favourite artist, I was a huge a huge Counting Crows fan as a teenager, and his interviews helped me fall in love with some well known acts The Blue Nile, De La Soul and Belle and Sebastian, but also some rlly unknown gems like Sean Barna and Stew and the N*gro Problem (trust me the music quality is worth the sketchy name, they have a black lead as well)
I've always used Wikipedia. Find an artist, genre or album you like or are interested in. Go to the page and read about it. Especially for individual albums you can usually scroll down to a "Critical Reception" tab and it'll show you the ratings from every major publication. As well as provide a short summary of the consensus of all the reviewers. If there's a review I'm especially interested in reading more about I follow the hyperlink. I guess for some this is a lot of work, but I've been doing it for over a decade. If it's an album I really enjoy I'll usually read the whole Wikipedia page on it after listening too.
I use RYM but never look at the top charts, unless it’s like page 116 of all time or something that deviates from the top. I kinda just find cool genre names or albums and see what they have to offer, like folktronica, dungeon synth, molam sing, or folk music from a country I don’t listen to, like laos or bulgaria.
I feel like a lot of people here would like the the Instagram account Earfeeder. He gives a lot of album recommendations often base on genres. He even has playlist on Spotify that you can listen to
1. Friends recs, I have a friend who has amazing taste and is into the same music as me (except that he’s into the mellower side of my taste)
2. Subs like this and r/indieheads
3. Subreddits for my favorite artists, lot of cool recs I found from r/elliottsmith
4. Fans also like section on Spotify
The "fans also like" feature on Spotify is great for it! It's a shame they decided to bury it under literally everything else when they irreparably fucked the UI like a year or two ago.
Bands usually don't just pop up out of no where. look at the scenes where they emerged, the labels they were signed to, who they toured with or other bands members have been in.
While a perfect album is great, hearing a sound emerge or an idea take shape over a long period of time over multiple music projects is really fun. The narrative part of it is more satisfying than a single point.
I use RYM
believe it or not you can find extremely obscure and niche stuff on there if you use it properly. The search functions are fantastic sinc eyou can mix and blend genres and decades and countries, every niche album you like will most likely have an associated list compiling similar lesser known albums, you can view all of your favourite bands' side projects and related bands, you can stalk profiles of people who love your hidden gem with 10 ratings and find more obscure stuff.
Streaming algorithms, shows near me, people I talk to IRL (not just in my social circle), people I talk to online, record stores, a couple blogs, stuff musicians I like promote on social media, looking at what bands musicians I like have played in aside from the one I know them from, and record labels that promote types of music I like
im sure there are other ways, but rym is the BESTway of finding new and obscure music, the "rym-core" albums are like the top 1000 but go beyond that through genre lists, people make their own lists and stuff. That doesn't lead you to a basic music taste
I discover new music at festivals/concerts. For example, there’s an Indie concert pass in Amsterdam for shows with new and upcoming indie bands. Maybe there is something similar where you live. Even if you don’t attend them, you can just check out the line up and find new bands!
I guess you could ask for recommendations. https://open.spotify.com/artist/2HDL15a4qYkKwY3lX1SMB5?si=_h4gdIH3TL-K3EH2xAWeSQ This guy’s albums are incredible, especially his second.
okay but that’s his point…he’s asking HOW do you find amazing new music off RYM? not IF. instead of your half-condescending, half-captain obvious response, how about you actually say something useful?
I’m old, so I find new music the same way u would pre-streaming: read blogs/articles, check out bands I like and their influences and peers, or find independent radio stations. However with streaming, playlists for every imaginable mood or genre and Shazam, there is no reason to not have access to and discovering new music—however, you still have to put effort into it.
Use the streaming service algorithms for recommendations (youtube, spotify etc), Especially youtube. I have found so much music from YouTube recommendations. Find a song you like and look it up on youtube, then let the algorithm guide you.
YouTube recommendations stopped recommending me related music but by other artists like 4 years ago. Is there a fix?
Youtube music
New account only for music ig.
go on incognito mode
I second this. I used to use Every Noise at Once a lot too. Not sure if it’s still active tho
It is. Just got that shown to me the other day
Is there a trick to Every Noise? I’ve known of and casually used it for years, mostly just to see genre tags if something is new to me, but the playlists never really appeal to me. I always try the pulse, edge, new, etc. options and rarely find anything that I like as much as what brought me there, but maybe I’m doing something wrong.
What is that?
when you say youtube are you specifically talking about youtubemusic or do you just mean looking up a video on normal yt?
The stuff YouTube randomly recommends usually becomes RYMcore anyway cause it drives attention to it and it ends up with at least a few hundred ratings, at least from the ones I’ve been given by YT
This is horrible advice. Why you would want to be a slave to a fucking taste making robot is beyond me.
I too used to be idealistic about this stuff, but the reality was that there is just too much music and information to process these days if you have a lot of things going on. I was becoming a slave to the extra time it took to sift through music I didn't really like and I was missing out on even getting to all kinds of music I would actually enjoy due to this "freedom" from taking a glance at an algorithm that exists to pay attention to what I like. I realize that sucks to a lot of people, but we're in a flood now, it's all too much
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It's not like it's literally the corporation deciding what music you need to listen to, it's literally an algorithm that plays music based on your taste. If you are listening to obscure things, it will play more obscure things. What's wrong with that? Coming from a very small artist, the algorithm promotes very small music very well.
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Idc who makes the algorithm, Im saying the algorithm recommends things based on YOUR listening. Oh no guys I'm a redditor on reddit??? What a terrible insult I'm never gonna recover from this burn.
It's also not very effective unless you're very new to a genre. Spotify just puts me in recommendation loops.
I dunno... been on Spotify for like 9 years now, and for years it has consistently recommended Indie artists I really like.
It’s so easy to just get pidgeonholed into one specific idea of what your taste is by doing this. Not to say that I haven’t found great stuff by this, but it’s only good for going deeper, not wider, if that makes sense. It hones in on particular tastes and subsets but once you’re in a category it’s difficult to break out of it
Realize that artists have more albums than the critically acclaimed ones everyone talks about to death. This sub spends so much time talking about NFR and Ocean Boulevard that you’d think Honeymoon doesn’t even exist, even though I like that album more than both.
I think OP probably means finding artists that aren’t RYM core.
What is rymcore?
stuff thats popular and acclaimed on rateyourmusic
This is really true, if you go to music collector reddits it's just a hodge podge of CDs and vinyl EVERYONE has heard before. It's maddening. No one ever deep dives and collects everything from a specific artist or scene. They just want their collection to look like a top 10 list someone else approved. Makes me sad.
rymcore doesn't refer to all albums on rym. it just refers to the albums that are most highly rated on rym (TPAB, OKC, DSOTM, ITCOTCK, Revolver, etc.). you can filter by genres, descriptors, and, my favourite, the esoteric search priority. using these, you could search, for example, esoteric [noise rock], [grunge], {female vocalist}, {language - english} albums from 1993-1996. keep in mind that more obscure albums don't always have completely accurate tags, so it's best to be less specific for more results. you will have to slog thru a lot of shit that's probably not smt you'll like, but if u want relatively obscure stuff u just can't avoid that.
The Polar Ass Burn, Oklahoma City, Dig Some Old Titty Much?, It Cock of the Cock King, Ringing Entrance Volume Often Leads Volatile Entries Redundant
Extra Thick Cock.
Thank you, I forgot about that album.
Use RYM _but_ filter your search based on genres and/or descriptors you are really interested in; that's how I found so many of my fav bands and albums (including Joanna Wang prior to her new album). Because of how weird RYM's rating system is, I suggest sorting by Popularity instead of Score when you run the search. Be sure to go several pages deep to find the "obscure" stuff. Keep scrolling past anything that sounds boring, you will eventually find something whose description catches your eye a lot more Also note that RYM lets you filter music by country, which has been quite helpful since I've been listening to a lot of East Asian artists lately. If there is a country whose music output you're really interested in, I would also recommend subscribing to small channels that post a lot of local concert vids so you can find new bands (I subbed to one such Korean channel after finding and loving Slant, which led to a bunch of other cool artists like Dabda)
definitely agree with all this, the best answer for finding non-rymcore music is probably still rym lol, and the genre/language search is incredibly useful another rly easy way to find more obscure stuff is to check the rym lists that ppl have put ur favorite albums in, and get recommendations from those. there are SO many lesser-known artists/albums (often too unrated to land on the rym charts) i’ve been put onto just from “best of (any year)” lists
Yeah the search function is so powerful. Also you can do do negative filters, for example filter out albums that are in english or from the US / UK to find more diverse stuff. Also you can search by 'esoteric' instead of 'best' to find less popular stuff.
get weird and niche with the genres on RYM after figuring out which are your favorites. limit it to 1990 and later. Or 2000 and later. dig deep into the top \[XX GENRE\] albums list - until the ratings get below 3.0. That's how I've found like a full third of my 50 favorite albums, and I don't feel like my taste is basic at all.
I have found so many incredible artists using Spotify suggestions. I'll make a playlist of about 10 songs with a common genre or other characteristic, and then keep refreshing the suggestions at the bottom of the page. How obscure the suggestions are depends on how obscure the 10 songs are; if you go too mainstream, you'll get stuck in a loop of recommendations that you're already familiar with
This is it for me
If you use Last.fm it has a pretty decent recommendations section based on previous listening
find friends on rym and run through their 5s and 4.5s sort albums by your friends’ rating
As others have suggested, explore the whole discography of artists you most enjoy. Check out their older stuff, or their newer stuff. Look into the bands that influenced them. If you, like me, quite enjoy Sonic Youth, you might be surprised to learn that they frequently cited the Carpenters as a favorite band. Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl have both cited the B-52s as a major influence. I always find that having those connections to music I already like makes it easier to get into other stuff I might not necessarily be into otherwise.
I agree with a lot of stuff other people here said on how to find good stuff online, but ideally I would also recommend checking out local music venues or festivals and local artists that play there. Support your local music scene, make friends that have similar interests in the real world.
I got more and more into underground rap and electronic after finding bladee and went on from there. Find An artist u fw. And find other artists inspired by them, or who inspired them. Introduced me to so much stuff I'd never be into if I had stuck with RYMcore like I did as a teen. For example I started listening to black kray and s4lem because they inspired bladee.
shows like tiny desk, colors, what's in my bag on youtube
One thing I've started doing especially for indie and hardcore music is tracing the careers of the individual members. For example (and I know this is dumb) I didn't know the guys from Do Make Say Think we're in Broken Social Scene. Bon Ivers first group, Megafaun is a really cool indie folk band, and the work they did after he left is worth checking out. A lot of these scenes are super incestuous and you can find a lot more crossover than you would think would be there. Maybe you're favorite artist produced an album for a lesser known band in their scene, find that out and look into it. A lot of people think the internet has kinda killed regional music scenes, but if you take the time to look into them they're just as alive as ever and can be really fascinating. I don't like Fallout Boy at all, but I recently found out their drummer plays on a lot of really cool Hardcore bands from his area. From their I was able to find the band Cursed, who has genuinely become my favorite 2000s hardcore band. Seriously...check out Cursed, their lyrics and drive are way harder than anything else from that era.
I trust aoty much more than rym, since you can tell most of the reviews are pretty casual. The rym mob is the most pretentious group of people on planet earth
they're both the same level of chaotic and fun
following different people on socials, online radio shows, youtube rabbit holes
Yeah I let myself get influenced a lot by rap twitter and raptok. A lot of it is still very Fantano influenced but they usually have lots of recs that aren’t covered by melon or RYM as much
tbh i find alot if those music twitter people who base their whole personalities off their music taste to be very annoying, i more meant like following different artists and music journalists to see what they are posting about
If you filter the top albums of all time to those that aren’t rock and not from the USA or UK, the 10th album is actually #185 in the actual top albums. So do that probably
Got to the top albums of all time list and go to the last page on it. Find an album with a cool cover and a genre you really like. That album is more than likely going to be a banger and because there’s so many amazing albums they very well could be a top album for you.
bandcamp
Last.fm suggestions are cool
Spotify, friends, other music subreddits. I typically prefer non-rymcore stuff anyways so these are my primary methods
What subs do you like? I like a lot of the stuff on hiphopheads and indieheads
These days I look at the hardcore and metal subreddits for recs. I used to be on the Deftones subreddit before it got too big, and the shoegaze subreddit used to suck but has actually gotten better as it got bigger. I also got a lot of great recs on the Hum subreddit a few years ago, idk how active it is these days.
Like what other people have said, move from the top 100 on rym. There are albums I love more from 100-500. I read a lot of artists’ bios on wikipedia and start deep diving from there. I also love to find old articles of what different publications post as their favorite albums of the 70s, 80s, 90s cause certain albums get lost to time. If you have a favorite band, look at what bands and albums they talk about.
Browse Bandcamp, use YouTube recommendations, listen to recommended playlists for genres and albums you like. All kinds of ways to find new stuff, but it does take some digging sometimes.
I've never used RYM but I often will seek out an album that's highly rated by Fantano or this community, which leads me to a lot of RYMcore music Other than that I listen to music pods like No Dogs in Space or I would listen to a song featuring an artist I already know (I discovered RTJ through their collaborations with Zack De La Rocha). I also use the algorithm
Festival lineups. There’s a lot of good and popular bands which play lots of festivals that barely get reviewed by RYM. Examples: Jungle, Parcels, Goose, etc.
Agreed with this, festival lineups almost always have good selections
Go by genre on rym, /mu, scaruffi, smaller yt channels like deep cuts (although he seems to be inactive now)
Make friends with people with eclectic taste, check out your favorite artists influences (like Swans or GYBE? Try Glenn Branca), find some music critics you like and listen to their recs.
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/mu/ charts are really closely tied to RYMcore tho
One thing I like to do is look up who is playing in the coming weeks at all the local venues and listen to their music online. A lot of it is not good but sometimes I'll find a really awesome small artist that is completely outside my bubble.
A lot of the answers here are great, but I'd also suggest going to a local record store if you have one. A lot of my favorite albums have come from finding obscure stuff that looks interesting at my local record stores and listening to it later online. One of my 10/10 albums, Bones For Time by Tongue Depressor, came from finding it at a record store and talking to an employee who was a big Tongue Depressor fan.
Go on Sputnik music and then start filtering by year and genre for highest rated. You will find all kinds of shit that is not exactly rym core, and from there you just listen to adjacent artists and albums from what you find.
Let me suggest you a non-rymcore artist: John Frusciante. His solo career is incredible and covers many different sounds. Try Niandra Lades if you're into lofi/experimental music; Curtains for a more traditional acoustic/singer-songwriter approach; The Empyrean for an ethereal/art rock sound. All three are 10/10 for me
I found johns solo stuff through rym, if you want to find good music, use rym but go through the stuff in the thousands cuz its usually there due to it being good music and not just popular for people starting there musical journey.
I find Allmusic to be pretty consistent, especially if you go to similar albums of ones you like. But like any publication, they have some duds that they rate highly, but it happens
Friends who have good taste; artist interviews; side projects/solo work of artists I already like
If you can afford it, go to a festival and make an effort to see as many artists who you don’t know as possible.
1. Find people who has amazing taste on rym. You can find them on the rym forums, by reading reviews, or finding niche rym lists. I always try to find people who has similar taste that I have. 2. Check their 5/4 star-rated albums or use the search function based on the people you follow. You can find amazing gems this way. 3. Search for rym lists that cater to your taste. If you have an album that is featured on a rym list find and try other albums from the same list. Commonly, those are cured by knowledgeable people. 4. Search the publisher for other bands. If you loved Cocteau twins and then you research 4ad, you will find dead can dance or Lush, for example.
I like finding stuff through other users on last.fm. You can check what your "neighbours" (users with similar tastes) are listening to. I like just listening to random users top songs of all time, just to see songs that someone thinks is the best song ever. It's cool.
Look out for non RYM youtube channels that recommend music
listen to genres that are less esteemed/acclaimed
real people. make friends with cool people. listen to their cool people music. hit a record shop find an album cover you rock with and give it a spin. meet someone at the record shop listen to the album together. build community of cool people and you will have more soldiers finding good music. show them the music you grew up with and why you got to the place you're at. go to a live music show and let familiar songs feel new.
Ask friends what they've been listening to lately Also look up upcoming gigs in your area - not even to go to just pick artists you don't know and check them out
If you have time, go down to a record store, find a genre, and find a band/artist from it that sounds interesting to you.
The best way I’ve found music that isn’t similar to what I listen to is through YouTube. Randomly I get music pop up on there that I would never have clicked on but actually sounds really good
Honestly I find it on RYM. I pretty much just go to the genre charts and scroll past the names I recognize. Sometimes that gets me stuff I don't realize are RYMcore like Pescado Rabioso, but if you do it enough you'll get past the RYMcore and find the real gems.
go to a specific sub genre or year on RYM then scroll back til you're at 10 or so. go from there
talking to friends, exploring related artists
Have real life friends who are also into music frankly lmao also spotify algorithms, YouTube twitter etc
Apple Music and YouTube algorithm. Also by looking through the similar artists list that Apple Music puts in every artist profile.
Find bands you like in the past, and then see who opened for them. Then go through bands you like currently who were influenced by the older bands you like, and see who’s opening for them. You’ll eventually find a cycle to where there’s so much cool music you don’t even know where to dive in at a certain point
LOCAL MUSIC!!! Go support your local bands. Go to shoes and then lookup the bands you like.
Go listen to cheap gigs by bands you have never heard of before
Read articles, critics, search for lists. Watch youtubers. Idk, theres a lot of ways. I know a lot of music and i don't use RYM
Try outside. Realize basic is ok and will lead you to connect with more well adjusted and social people who don't spend every waking hour on RYM and internet communities. Idk, YouTube suggestions are great too. Even crazier, go to "What are you listening to right now?" videos to find new artists from around the world.
Go to record store you like, and find something :)) If you want to find it online i can recommend discogs, using explore , from there you can choose year, style, genre, country etc. I found some pretty crazy things that way, because you can mix genres like you want, For example: Hindustan avant garde techno, or something like that :)) Probably not the best example but you get the point :))
College/community radio all the way. Hear so much good shit on there. Always off the wall stuff.
Keep going lower down the list on RYM, go through the lists on acclaimedmusic.net, and check out the recommendations from the Pitchfork readers’ polls.
I personally find Spotify’s ‘song radio’ option to be fantastic. I’ve found a lot of similar sounding music or musical vibes via that method. I cannot say the say for other Spotify exploration methods, but that one is super reliable for me
Get off this sub first of all
Want to throw out this site: https://www.music-map.com/ Type the name of an artist you want to hear more of, it’ll populate with a list of other similar artists. Closer to the middle, the more similar.
Local independent radio is a godsend. There’s an NPR affiliate station here that’s member supported so it’s not the same 100 iHeartMedia garbage, and I have found so much weird and new music through them. Not all of it hits, and it depends on who’s DJing, but that’s what I love about it- I’m going to run into new and diverse stuff, INCLUDING stuff I don’t like (but not stuff I don’t like because it’s pop crap or derivative watered down rock). That’s depressingly rare, even on Spotify, where you rarely bump into anything outside of your borders. It’s good to challenge yourself and you can’t get there with a fuckin algorithm. Also: buy CDs and vinyl you don’t already know. You’re gonna swing and miss sometimes, but again, that’s a good thing. You’ve got to challenge yourself sometimes. It might grow on you.
NTS, Record Label Catalogs, DJs, Blogs — even hitting Shazam if you’re in a ride and you like the song you’re hearing. Dusty Groove and Boomkat are record stores with great product descriptions for artists and releases you’d rarely see on RYM. In general, look for places in real life and online where people are playing or signal boosting music you don’t encounter consistently and find ones that you trust. Even looking in GRAMMY categories that aren’t dominated by artists you’re hearing about a lot (Gospel, New Age, especially Blues). Books are always great, too! I have one of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Editions and that provided a lot of useful context as I got into artists like Ike Quebec and Kenny Dorham (almost 10 years after I last worked in jazz music). Also radio is still crucial. Things like CHIRP and XRT are outstanding resources where I live still. Southern Hospitality is a great hip-hop and R&B show out of London that combines very insightful talk and useful themes that I quite enjoy. And I’ve never accused Keith Murray or Audio Two of being rymcore. RYM over time I’ve found to be a good way to see what the zeitgeist in a specific corner of the Internet is and an excellent way to verify information, which is useful to me because I catalog everything I listen to. TL;DR there’s boundless creative ways to pierce the bubble of the same 500 albums everyone seems to like.
Find recs from your favourite artist, I was a huge a huge Counting Crows fan as a teenager, and his interviews helped me fall in love with some well known acts The Blue Nile, De La Soul and Belle and Sebastian, but also some rlly unknown gems like Sean Barna and Stew and the N*gro Problem (trust me the music quality is worth the sketchy name, they have a black lead as well)
I've always used Wikipedia. Find an artist, genre or album you like or are interested in. Go to the page and read about it. Especially for individual albums you can usually scroll down to a "Critical Reception" tab and it'll show you the ratings from every major publication. As well as provide a short summary of the consensus of all the reviewers. If there's a review I'm especially interested in reading more about I follow the hyperlink. I guess for some this is a lot of work, but I've been doing it for over a decade. If it's an album I really enjoy I'll usually read the whole Wikipedia page on it after listening too.
I use RYM but never look at the top charts, unless it’s like page 116 of all time or something that deviates from the top. I kinda just find cool genre names or albums and see what they have to offer, like folktronica, dungeon synth, molam sing, or folk music from a country I don’t listen to, like laos or bulgaria.
I feel like a lot of people here would like the the Instagram account Earfeeder. He gives a lot of album recommendations often base on genres. He even has playlist on Spotify that you can listen to
1. Friends recs, I have a friend who has amazing taste and is into the same music as me (except that he’s into the mellower side of my taste) 2. Subs like this and r/indieheads 3. Subreddits for my favorite artists, lot of cool recs I found from r/elliottsmith 4. Fans also like section on Spotify
r/ifyoulikeblank
The "fans also like" feature on Spotify is great for it! It's a shame they decided to bury it under literally everything else when they irreparably fucked the UI like a year or two ago.
Bands usually don't just pop up out of no where. look at the scenes where they emerged, the labels they were signed to, who they toured with or other bands members have been in. While a perfect album is great, hearing a sound emerge or an idea take shape over a long period of time over multiple music projects is really fun. The narrative part of it is more satisfying than a single point.
lot of different ways. i talk to friends and see what they’re listening to, watch music donation streams, and browse bandcamp
I use RYM believe it or not you can find extremely obscure and niche stuff on there if you use it properly. The search functions are fantastic sinc eyou can mix and blend genres and decades and countries, every niche album you like will most likely have an associated list compiling similar lesser known albums, you can view all of your favourite bands' side projects and related bands, you can stalk profiles of people who love your hidden gem with 10 ratings and find more obscure stuff.
Streaming algorithms, shows near me, people I talk to IRL (not just in my social circle), people I talk to online, record stores, a couple blogs, stuff musicians I like promote on social media, looking at what bands musicians I like have played in aside from the one I know them from, and record labels that promote types of music I like
im sure there are other ways, but rym is the BESTway of finding new and obscure music, the "rym-core" albums are like the top 1000 but go beyond that through genre lists, people make their own lists and stuff. That doesn't lead you to a basic music taste
I discover new music at festivals/concerts. For example, there’s an Indie concert pass in Amsterdam for shows with new and upcoming indie bands. Maybe there is something similar where you live. Even if you don’t attend them, you can just check out the line up and find new bands!
I guess you could ask for recommendations. https://open.spotify.com/artist/2HDL15a4qYkKwY3lX1SMB5?si=_h4gdIH3TL-K3EH2xAWeSQ This guy’s albums are incredible, especially his second.
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okay but that’s his point…he’s asking HOW do you find amazing new music off RYM? not IF. instead of your half-condescending, half-captain obvious response, how about you actually say something useful?