This week, we're looking at a few ways to cultivate some new music in your life. Now, I'm not saying to delete your favorite songs from your phone, but here's some cool ways to find new songs to bump along with all your favorites. Join me on the sweet quest to find new tunes.
It's an almost daily occurrence for me to walk by the bathrooms in my residence hall and hear someone just blasting music while they shower. That's totally cool. But what I don't really get is that for someone's entire shower-set list, all they play is the same thing. Whether it's pop, pop-country, pop-punk or whatever, it seems to me that too many people let their musical taste become dictated by what's playing on the radio. I guess that's fine, but what I don't understand is how someone could be content to discover their music from just one source.
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There's a lot to be said about the power of pop music. After all, that's short for popular, right? So obviously the music you hear on the radio is resonating with a ton of people, otherwise they'd call it something like unpop music. However, I'd make the case that it's always good to broaden your horizons and really dig into the roots of what you like. So, maybe Rihanna's your thing. Awesome, she's really great. But why limit yourself to just her music? Why not check out the artists who she looked up to as she started her career? Speaking of influence, check out the credits for Beyonce's "Lemonade."
When you learn where a certain kind of music comes from, you get not only the chance to check out some older tunes that are important to the artists you really like, but you also gain an appreciation for the genre of the music. Would you have ever guessed that this was one of the driving foundations for Usher's entire career? Yeah, me neither. But this is the kind of cool trivia you can impress your friends with when you learn about the roots of your favorite music.
Sure, it's cool to have some Ken Jennings-level trivia about your favorite kind of music. But, keeping up with the goings-on of pop (or whatever it is you like to listen to) can also help you dig into the sick tunes just below the surface. Were you really into "Uptown Funk?" Did you know that it's not a Bruno Mars song? Sure, he's featured on the track, but the song comes from a whole album of funk bangers put out by Mark Ronson. Did you know that the guy singing in the last song I linked is pretty famous for creating a whole new age of psychedelic rock?
So, all you prospective hipsters, how do you find songs before they get cool? Here's a couple of ways.
First off, gnoosic is the coolest thing. You put in three artists you really like, and in return you get a never-ending list of similar artists. You can spend hours on this thing finding stuff you've never even heard before. It's a great tool to find new stuff.
Signing up with Spotify grants you some pretty slick privileges, one of which is called "Discover Weekly." Every Monday, the streaming service will create a new playlist for you based on what you've been listening to. It's really good at throwing in dope off-the-wall tracks that have the same vibe as your favorite classics.
If you're in the mood to listen to stuff no one's ever heard before, Forgotify is a sweet website. It doesn't discriminate between genres, though, so you'll have to invest some time to skip over all the songs that aren't really your thing. But, you can find some really cool songs if you take the time.
Are you one of those people who only likes one thing? Whether it's country, rap or rock, you've been bit by that bug that just won't let you listen to anything else. Check out the history of your favorite genre by hitting up some of the artists featured on its Wikipedia page. You might not enjoy what you hear—Dierks Bentley doesn't sound exactly like Johnny Cash—but you can learn a lot about the foundations of your favorite songs.
Look, you can take all of this with a grain of salt, but the fact remains: even the most groundbreaking, never-heard-before kind of music has roots in the music that came before it. At the very least, if you're hurting for some new tunes, here's a good place to start.
Do you have a burning question you want answered, but don't want to do the research? That's great, because I'm constantly running out of things to write about, but I'm always willing to dig deep and find out what's going on! Please email me at wstaub@keuka.edu. I'll get to the bottom of it, and you'll see the answer posted here!
