music

Steps to Music Discovery

So Hard to Get Along

So Hard to Get Along – Ann Arbor, Michigan

Lately, I feel like I’m exploring more and more musical acts, especially in progressive rock and metal. So many musical discoveries have come from a combination of Spotify, YouTube, Amazon, and following the bands I love. I feel like I’m awash in music, and it brings me a lot of joy.

Don’t get me wrong: I still purchase my music, usually in physical form. I give myself a monthly musical budget, and I’m not afraid to spend that money.

But music discovery? Spotify makes this so easy.

The steps go something like this:

  1. Listen to a band I enjoy
  2. Look at the “Related Artist” tab on Spotify and poke around
  3. Check out YouTube to see if the artist has any music videos (remember those?)
  4. Head to Amazon to see what reviewers say about their albums
  5. Put an album in my Amazon wish list to reference later
  6. Purchase the album

Rinse, repeat.

I don’t do like the kids do these days and use Spotify (or Apple Music, or any other streaming service) for all my music needs. But I do find that it’s perfect for experimenting, and for checking out albums that I’ve always wanted to hear before I buy.

(And thank goodness for YouTube. If an artist is not on Spotify, chances are someone has ripped and uploaded their album to YouTube.)

For those bands that have been on the periphery of my musical tastes, digital music venues offer me a free sample. It costs nothing, except a potential album purchase down the road.

I haven’t been this excited about music since around the time I was in college, when so much good stuff was coming my way from friends in school and college radio. Today, the material is almost overwhelming, because now the entirety of rock and roll’s catalog is at my fingertips. A lot of these newly-discovered artists have quickly become some of my favorites. That’s a fun feeling.

Supporting my favorite artists with actual money is so important. Thanks to these streaming services, I can find more favorite artists to support.

(Follow along on Spotify if you’re interested in what I listen to!)

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Funeral In My Headphones

“Instead of slashing my wrists, I just write a bunch of really crummy songs.” – Peter Steele, Ink19 interview

I remember it like it was yesterday: Freshman year of college, walking to work at the local elementary, World Coming Down spinning on my portable CD player.

It was 1999, and Type O Negative had a new album out – a gloomy, doom-filled prophecy. It was hard to get in to it at first, especially after the glam-goth love songs of October Rust.

Take “World Coming Down.” It’s basically a dirge, in rock form. Very hard to listen to sometimes. It’s sonic depression.

I remember walking to my job at the school, shuffling through the leaves, trying to make heads or tails of this funeral in my headphones. Everything’s wilting around me, I’m having trouble adjusting to life at college, the weather sucks, and here’s Pete in my ears singing a suicide note.

But now, all these years later, I play this album every autumn, and those slow, death-march songs stick. If you survive eight minutes in, the payoff is just fantastic. Peter Steele really was a fabulous song writer.

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Ceremonials

I feel like Florence + The Machine’s second album, Ceremonials, is probably perfect. Nearly every song on the album could be a single, and it’s full of hooks, melodies, and drama.

But get this: almost every song on the album is a video.

“Shake It Off,” above (and my favorite). “What the Water Gave Me.”

“Lover to Lover.”

“No Light, No Light.”

“Never Let Me Go.”

And then there’s “Spectrum.”

Ceremonials is one of those albums where every song almost was a single. Six videos out of a 12-song album? Jiminy.

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‘Feel Like Falling’ Tab by Riverside

Finally submitted my first guitar tab, featuring the song “Feel Like Falling” by Riverside.

It’s taken me a while to find the right combo of (a) a song I could sit down and teach myself and (b) a song that hadn’t already been tabbed. But this ear-worm of a tune made me want to learn it on guitar. I failed to find any tablature for it, so I thought, “What the heck?” I went home that night and fingered(!) it out on my own.

It took a few days to get the phrasing just right, and a day or two to get the tab just how I liked it. But now it’s been approved at Ultimate Guitar, so I’m officially a tabber. 

Enjoy the song, because it really is damned catchy.

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Music As Commodity

Soon there will be no such thing as your music library. There will be no such thing as your music. We had it all wrong! Information doesn’t want to be free, it wants to be a commodity.

On Death and iPods: A Requiem | WIRED

I’m not shy about it: I still buy my music. Gladly.

Part of it is philosophical: I like the artist to directly benefit, however small their slice of the pie is. It’s like a vote for them.

Also, I’m old school in that I like to collect and organize my music library. My music belongs to me. I paid good money for it. And if I stop paying for it, my music will still be there – either on CDs or in iTunes. It doesn’t vanish to The Cloud™.

I know, I know, I’m old school. And it’s hard to fight trends like this one. We don’t watch TV via antenna signal anymore, no one signs up for Netflix’s DVD subscription service (except guess who!?), etc. The world of music is changing.

But for artists, they still have the same bills and responsibilities. They need to make money, and selling t-shirts doesn’t work for everyone.

I’m not sure what the answer is, exactly, but if you care about the artists that make the music you like, buy their stuff. Vote for their music with money.

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