Finding New Music

One of my resolutions for the year was to find a new album every month that I can add to my playlist. My music playlist hasn't really changed much in the past few years, with maybe a new album or two catching my attention each year, if I was lucky.

So, I delved into the world of music recently, trying to find something that speaks to me. In this blog I'll talk about what I'm looking for, where I've looked, and why I should have known this would be so difficult.
One of the main problems I'm facing is that I'm not simply looking for new music I like. There's a lot of music I like out there, from purely instrumental pieces including classic piano, video game music (and arrangements thereof), and so on. I also enjoy various pop songs, songs from 80s movies, blues, and all sorts of stuff.

Specifically, I'm looking for things I can actively participate in: things I'll enjoy singing while I'm doing other things. This narrows my options considerably. Vocals sometimes have a way of ruining a perfectly good instrumental when done poorly, and it's easy to do them poorly. There are plenty of vocalists with weird voices and singers with very limited range, not to mention all the ways lyrics can be written poorly, whether with poor meter, goofy word choices, or uninteresting subject matter.

When it comes to vocals, I'm not sure I can really articulate what I'm looking for. I appreciate witty and fun lyrics, songs that tell stories, songs I can relate to, sappy love songs, and on and on. I'm pretty sure a song can be about anything, if it's written well enough.

The Barenaked Ladies, for instance, had an awesome ability to write songs about pretty much anything, from arguments, the humor of infidelity, and the inability to completely give yourself to someone.

That said, it's hard to tell what I'll like, and I think my inability to articulate my preferences likely plays a large part in keeping me from finding new music. Some of it's simply a matter of taste: if I don't like the sound of a band or a singer's voice for whatever reason, there's nothing you can really do about it.

That said, there are precisely zero bands that have 100% awesome songs--even my absolute favorites have a few tracks that I'm lukewarm toward at best. So, when checking out a new band I like to sample several songs from them before moving on.

So far I've tried a few sites like Pandora, TasteKid, and If You Dig to see if they have any good recommendations, but there wasn't much luck there. Searching Barenaked Ladies on there turns up a bunch of one-hit-wonders from the 90s. Searching Five Iron Frenzy just brings up a bunch of ska music and Christian music, neither of which I'm all that into.

These services seem to focus only on the surface-level aspects of the band, yet they can't seem to grasp the deeper qualities that I personally connect with. And, to be fair, neither can I, really.

I also started browsing Bandcamp, listening to sample music from all those independent bands that make their home there. After a few hours sampling dozens of bands, though, I still turned up empty.

Recommending music is difficult. Everybody connects to music in a different way, and there's no telling what will attract us. It's kind of intimate, to reveal to other people what music you listen to.

That said, I'm taking recommendations. I promise to take any suggestions seriously, whether it's a band or a specific track.