From Spotify Discover Weekly to discovering music on a weekly radio show. There are the best ways to discover music in the 21st century.

With 40 million listeners tuning in to their Discover Weekly playlists every Monday, it’s clear that music fans have just as much of an insatiable desire for new music as they ever have. But with so many ways to consume music in the modern age, what is the best way to find new music.

Here is our list of the most reliable avenues to take on the way to finding your new favourite artist.

1 – Discover Weekly

We’ve debated about whether streaming services are beneficial to artists before, but one thing they are good for is discovering new music.

Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist takes user recommendations to a new level, using complex algorithms based on listening habits to find and compile an hour of music every week that the user may not yet have heard.

The resulting playlists have been described as ‘scary’ and ‘so damn good’. The technology works by examining the listening habits of fellow Spotify users and checking for overlap to find fans with similar tastes. Spotify then looks for tracks one of these similar users likes that the other user hasn’t listened to and puts them together in one uniquely tailored playlist.

Having new music suggestions handed to you on a plate by an algorithm is one thing, but there are still other, less technical ways to find new music.

2 – Trust in a DJ

Decades before Spotify, music fans looked to DJs to find their new favourite tracks. Whether listening intently for song names on the radio or demanding a tracklist from the side of the DJ booth, listeners would take the selections of their favourite DJs as sacred.

Even in the age of the internet, trusting in a DJ is still one of the best ways to find new songs and artists that you will love.

As DJ Slugo explains himself in The Story Behind – ‘Wouldn’t You Like to Be a Hoe’, his track was popular upon its first release, but it gained a new lease of life when Nina Kraviz picked it up and started playing it in her sets to great audience feedback.

Radio DJs, too, are still a surefire way to find musical gems. Despite falling listening figures for FM radio, online radio stations such as Beats One still command huge audiences for DJs like Zane Lowe.

Finding a DJ whose selections match exactly with your tastes can take time, but if you listen to enough radio and go to enough club nights, you should find more than enough new music that takes your fancy.

3 – Rely on a Record Label

The best record labels never release anything that doesn’t meet their standards. Record labels with a clear sense of identity are even better. Historical examples of labels you could rely on for releasing new music by new artists that you knew you would like include legendary labels like Motown and Trax.

As Trax head Screamin’ Rachael Cain told us, Trax is all about finding exciting new artists that live up to the label’s prestigious past. She cites New York City’s Tyler Stone as one of the new Trax artists she is most excited about.

Other labels and imprints have a similar outlook, always searching for the best artists and tracks to sign to reward faithful listeners.

Increasingly, the line between DJ and label is being blurred, as DJ-producers like Terry Hunter start labels to release their own productions and others’ productions that they really believe in. Perhaps the most striking example of this is Krankbrother, the German DJ duo whose record label is also named Krankbrother.

These independent record labels and imprints have defined aesthetics, meaning you can rely on them to release brand new music that you will love and introduce you to your new favourite artists.

For information on setting up a record label of your own, contact MN2S Label Services today.

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