Below are the resources I use to discover and explore music. I have used all of these to find to new music. However, I find the recommendations I enjoy best are almost always from real people :)
- The Global Network of Discovery (GNOD) is a website that uses a massive amount of listening data to recommend artists. Impressive features include Discover and the Music-Map. Discover allows you to list three artists you enjoy and GNOD will recommend 11 more. The Music-Map visualizes the proximity between artists. GNOD also offers similar tools for literature, film, and other forms of media.
- This is my personal favorite music website; it is a map of all 6000+ musical genres of Spotify. Every Noise at Once is connected to the Spotify API and can tell you information about artists, tracks, and genres that aren't readily accessible to the average Spotify user. Most notably, the website provides the genre tags associated with each artist but are hidden in the app. Now you can finally know why you get "Stomp and Holler" as a top genre in your Wrapped but have never heard the term before.
- For each genre, there are four playlists generated: Sound, Intro, Pulse, New (I will let you explore the differences between these). As far as I understand, the creator of the website, Glenn McDonald, no longer works at Spotify and hence does not have access to the backend data that ran some features of the site. The website is still up but isn't as powerful as it used to be, which is a real shame.
- If you want to find truly underground and cutting edge music, Bandcamp is the place to check. It is primarily a website to purchase music, but it includes a lot of resources to find music. You can search by location and also super specific genres like "Witch House". It is also the probably the best platform to support artists.
- A similar website to Pitchfork where music is reviewed and given a rating; user ratings are given a higher priority...for better and for worse.
- Like Rate Your Music but better -- less elitist and less grade-inflated. I prefer AOTY over RYM.
- If you care about your listening statistics and habits more than what the year in review of your favorite music corporation decides to show you, check out Last.fm. You can connect it to your Spotify, Apple Music, or other music platform. It then collects "scrobbles", i.e. your music listening data, to give very personalized recommendations and an analysis of your musical habits.
- "The most trusted voice in music."
- Similar to Pitchfork, but apparently less trusted.