Read 8 Must-Have Apps for Every Musician

Discover New Music

1. Bandcamp

Bandcamp is a little known service that is mostly used by artists to promote their songs. The app has a music feed, which shows you a list of songs and albums in the genre you follow which is great if you’ve to find music matching your taste. Another useful place to look for new music recommendation is the section called Bandcamp weekly, which great if you want hand-curated playlists ever week. The only downside is you have to buy music, and as a major chunk of people has a habit of free listening, this might not be the best option. Get Bandcamp for ( iOS | Android ) 

2. Gnoosic – Discover New Music

If you listen to a lot to pop-rock bands like Plain White T’s, Simple Plan, Something Corporate, etc, and want to find music on the same lines, this tool is for you. Gnoosic uses a self-adapting system where you have to feed in the bands you like. Then it does a bit of thinking and suggests you one-band at a time, with 3 options to rate the suggestions – “I like this”, “I don’t like this” and “I don’t know”. So as you tap on these, it adapts and shows you the next best match filtered by your taste. Visit Gnoosic 

3. Scala for Spotify

Consider it Tinder for Spotify. You can discover brand new music by swiping left and right just as you do on Tinder. You can create multiple playlists and simply export them to Spotify to listen to them later. What I love most about the app is that it’s not necessary to sign in with your Spotify account to use the app. The app also has a dark mode, for people who like a contrast. All in all, if you don’t listen to music on your PC and you use Spotify, you should give this app a try. Get Scala for Android

4. Every Noise

While all the above apps and websites are band, song, or genre-specific, Every Noise is all of them put together. The website is a great attempt to map obscure music in the form of a music map. For example, If you’ve to love Radiohead and you want to find related music, just type in the name in the search section at the top. It’ll show you a list of genres Radiohead is into. Simply click on it and you’ll get dozens of more artists with the same kind of music. Then you can simply tap on them and hear a 30-seconds sample. What sets this apart is that each of these genres has a Spotify playlist that you can access with just a tap. Visit Every Noise  

5. Spot Alike

Spot Alike, is one such web-app powered by Last.fm, which generates an entire Spotify playlist with a click of a button. All you have to do is feed it your favourite track name and select the song from a pop-up prompt. Within seconds it’ll show you a Spotify playlist. You can also login to Spotify to show your playlist in the app straightaway. For example, you can search for Adele and hit enter. This web-app will show you an entire playlist of related songs, which you can add to Spotify with just a single tap. You can find a playlist using an artist or the name of the song. Visit Spot Alike 

6. Song Recommendations on Reddit

If there is one place where you’ll find noobs, enthusiasts and professionals at one place, it’s Reddit. It has plenty of subreddits dedicated specifically to song recommendations. You can discover new songs, playlists, genre-specific suggestions, etc. The best part of these subreddits is you can post the type of songs you’re looking for and indulge in a longer conversation if you like talking about your favourites lines or part of a song. Here are some subreddits I follow and you can follow as well,

Musicsuggestions  for song suggestions, Spotify playlists If You Like for new music releases MusicMatch get suggestions about similar songs by submitting a track of your choice Listen to This for underground, obscure & overlooked music This is the Music Makers’ Music, a great place to discover artists submissions

7. Music Podcasts

Music Podcasts aren’t just a good way to find new music, but if you’re like me and love to listen to the artists talk and know the interesting backstory of how songs were made, there is nothing better than listening to music podcasts. You can download any podcasting service, and subscribe to these podcasts. There are some podcasts I listen to frequently.

Song Exploder, hosted by Hrishikesh Hirway, is a podcast where artists come and talk about the journey of the song, and how the song was created. So you get to listen to never heard before pieces of the songs and even a performance at the end. Tiny Desk Concert is a great place to listen to your favourite artists like Adele, Passion Pit, Tinariwen performs its best songs. This isn’t finding new music, but believe me, liv is far different from the studio versions. Sound Opinions happens once a weak and is majorly a great place to find new rock music and exclusive interviews. All Songs Considered is a weekly podcast, if you’re not genre-specific, you can tune in to find new music

Closing Remarks So here were some good ways to discover new music, whether you’re looking for a track or an entire playlist. In my opinion, if you don’t want to actively look for new genres and want it automated, music players like Spotify, Apple Music have some great discovery tools built natively. If not that, you can use Radio Garden to search for music around the world or my favourite platform Reddit, which never goes wrong. Also Read Best Music Players for Android You Should Try in 2020