In response to the recent article “New and Interesting Music Is Harder to Find than Ever,” I’d like to point to the adverse, which is that new and interesting music is actually much easier to find than ever. While radio and other terrestrial outfits continue to winnow and shorten their playlists to 200 or 300 songs – ensuring you will hear the same “hits” over and over while also ensuring the company’s bottom line – digital and streaming services have no such need or desire. They also offer many artists/genres that you would never hear in the old broadcast pre-digital era.
While researching for my many various Mood programs, I find these music streaming services invaluable. For example, the artist Ray LaMontagne and his new song “Hey, No Pressure” is used in one of my programs. A simple search on Spotify finds Ray and his top 5 most popular songs. Scroll down a bit more and discovery awaits you. Ray’s previous albums and singles are there, an artist playlist, where else Ray’s music had appeared, and most important – to me – related artists. This is where I found similar acts, bands and performers I would have likely never had stumbled on otherwise, especially on regular radio. Singer/songwriters like Joe Purdy, who got me turned on to William Fitzsimmons – (he does a great cover of “I Kissed A Girl” by the way) – who in turn got me turned on to Joshua James. If these are names that are unfamiliar to you, like they were before for me, join the club. Better yet – join a streaming service. Other formats like Electronica, Bluegrass, even Jazz are a just a few that are hardly represented, if at all, in today’s terrestrial landscape.
Let your fingers do the searching, then your ears the listening. You never know what you might scroll upon. And if you don’t know it, congratulations! You just found something new and interesting.
– Submitted by Brian Chamberlain, Music Design