how do you discover new good music?

[quechal]

i hate buying a CD and the band turning out to suck. you hear all this good stuff about a band and it is crap. where is a good place to hear about good new or not so new bands? cause i swear, if i shell out 15 bucks for another CD like the 'trail of the dead" one that everything that i read about them said was great, i am just gonna lose it.

[Synd D`nys]

Most of the FYE music stores in my area all have listening stations where you can scan the bar code of any disc shop and listen to parts of every song on the album. Works on about 80-90% of their inventory usually.

[somecleric]

NME, pitchfork, allmusic.com, friends, coworkers, shoutcast stations, spinner and luck.

You just need to be willing to put a little effort in. And never, ever buy anything without listening to at least some of it first.

[jewsdre]

if there is a band that I like over others, I check their label. If they are on Victory records, I'll go to Victory Records' site and check out other bands that are on the label. They usually have similarities and what not.

So my answer for new music is pretty much always the record labels. OR you can go buy compilation CDs. Great way to hear all kinds of new bands.

[Bledynn]

For four years I was a college radio DJ. That was the absolute best way to discover great music that the mindless general public misses. I wasn't even a student at the time, I just volunteered a four hour shift on Monday nights for fun. I played whatever the hell I wanted and got to make tons of copies of rare albums while I was there. I even got to interview some cool bands from time to time (though I made a complete fool of myself interviewing Archers of Loaf) and would sometimes get free passes to shows. You won't make any money, but if you're just a big music fan, it's a fun hobby that I highly reccomend.

[Hokoraf]

There are programs on the internet for original and good music. There is KaZaA, if you think all the mainstream stuff is original and good?? There is also, what I use, Soulseek. http://www.slsk.org/ you can get it at that link, no ads, no strings attached, easy to use. But it's mostly undergroundbased. The type of music I like is stuff most have never heard of. E.G:

artist: Squarepusher (songs like: Port Rhombus - Beep Street - ceephax mix-rns )
Tortoise ( Monica - Cornpone Brunch - Seneca and the TNT album )
Beaumont Hannant ( Teqtonic - substance - Santec )
Pluxus ( Pluxemburg - Psykopotat - Genie 44 )

They are all original artists with original music ussing electronics and instruments ( no lyrics in all these songs though )

You can also get metal and oldies and stuff, not much hiphop or country AND NO boybands... southpark videos and stuff like that too

The thing is when you find something you like, you can browse the person you are downloading from's whole collection and usually find something of the same taste you never heard before. End result: expanding your music, sharing with others *(option hehe) and finding really what you like

[Prodigious]

mp3 mp3 mp3
p2p p2p p2p

just download albums with filesharing programs (i recommend direct connect from www.neo-modus.com) and listen away. top quality, full songs. then you can either burn them or go out and buy the cd, up to you.

personally i think my influence has mostly come from a good friend who has a tendency to write gigantic lists of music he wants to download from the net.....he has a modem connection so it tends to build up and in the end, i download like 100 songs for him on my DSL then i get inspired and sometimes get really into a band and find out i like all their stuff. funny how it happens, really.

[Bristlebane]

Here's a method I like to use:

Find someone on Kazaa with a songlist similar to yours. Download all their songs you don't have.

Find a lot of good stuff that way.

[Tarissa DR]

Talking to fans of a band you like for more ideas is a great method. That's how a friend of mine got into a lot of prog metal (and recently went to the prog power 3 in atlanta here). Real good scene. Lots of hardcore fans, not crazy people, just big fans on an underground scene (US has almost a nil metal scene, compared to the rockstar status you get in Europe)

And word of mouth. That's how I got into Porcupine Tree, and a little less esoterically (not that PT is avante-garde or anything), the flaming lips.

-tari

[Evisceros Headcutter]

I use WinMX for P2P. I like it a lot better than Kazaa or Morpheus. Neo-Modus is by far the best if you have several gigs of music to share. But if you're just looking for a few songs here and there, then it's really not worth it.

[Mixtilplix]

www.epitonic.com

free fast downloads of many genres, though mostly underground.

[opium]

I've always found new favorites one of two ways. Browsing the internet, and stumbling across a gem or having a friend reccommend it to me. Most artists at least have a sample of one song you can listen to, although you're right, sometimes it's like buying a book; you read it, it may suck and the rest of the works from that artist might be outstanding (read: poor kids who picked up Maiden's Virtual XI) or you might have picked the typical explosively fresh debut album and the sophomore followup might be kinda lame or not cover any new ground, technically and musically (Blaze: Tenth Dimension)