Am I the only one not finding much good new music the last year or so?

The last year has been a real draught for me finding new music I like. Of all genres and kinds. I actually can't think of a single new band I've discovered in the last year, but there are probably a few. I spend about an hour every day searching for new music on various places. My bandcamp feed used to be a source of a lot of good music, but I'm now just rolling my eyes and hitting skip until I give up and go somewhere else.

Anyone else notice this? I'm curious if it is the lack of concerts from COVID finally having an effect on the music scene. Michael Gira of Swans recently had to send out a fundraising email to try to fund his next album because they had to cancel their tour and even he couldn't afford to make a new album. And this might be his last due to his age. So I of course donated. You should too by the way! Link (scroll down to the PayPal button)

Anyone have any recommended music blogs they like by the way?

 

My music tastes are probably different from yours, but at least 1/2 of what's been featured here has worked for me.

 

@rhythmdevils if I recall, you are a big fan of Indie Rock, correct?

While I agree that overall last year was not a very string year for new music, but there are a few gems to be found. I typically use my local public radio station to find new stuff as well as Metacritic Music, which compiles critic album reviews and is a great source to help find the diamonds in the rough. Here is a list of top releases so far for 2022:

https://www.metacritic.com/browse/albums/score/metascore/year?sort=desc&year_selected=2022

I gravitate towards the indie rock genre and so far, there have been several stellar new releases this year from newish bands: Beach House, Spoon, and Big Thief have all just released fantastic new albums.

If you haven't done so, please check out Black Country, New Road. They just released my favorite new album in quite some time, called "Ants From Up There". The song "Snow Globes" is a masterpiece!

https://www.metacritic.com/music/ants-from-up-there/black-country-new-road

 

All three of these albums released last Friday, February 11th:
Spoon - Lucifer on the Sofa
Alt-J - The Dream
Big Thief - Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

The Spoon album especially is a banger. They're getting away from chasing synthetic studio stuff and back to good old rock n roll. Hell of a record.

I normally check out the recent releases on Qobuz (all genres) and have found some nice surprises there that I'd never heard of before.

There's plenty of older music we haven't gotten around to yet (there's just SO MUCH music out there that I don't care who you are, there's plenty left to explore), but there's good new stuff coming out as well. May have to look in different places, change your approach, but it's out there.

 

I cycle thru my favorite labels for new releases on Bandcamp every once in a while, but indeed the last year or two everything's felt more like cleaned up B-side compilations than thoughtfully produced records. I suppose if the music artists produce is in any way reflective of their lives during production, some stagnation is to be expected... (edit, I feel like this about visual media too, though maybe to a slightly lesser extent)

On the flip side my boredom with music consumption has given me a little bit of a nudge to make more of the music I want to hear for myself. Maybe for others it can be a cue to cultivate new crafts and hobbies too

Sidenote - sometimes when I feel bored with the music I've been listening to, I simply decide to deep dive into a genre I previously hated just for the hell of it. Expanding boundaries in that way can be refreshing; aesthetic or artistic principles be damned.

Another edit -

https://everynoise.com/

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/69fEt9DN5r4JQATi52sRtq?si=cc934aed945342ab

Shuffle, play. Only 18k genre tags to listen thru, even though half of them are probably self-identified EDM subgenres lol

 

I've heard this album, and I don't love it like crazy but I do like it! Listned to it a few times already. Thanks!

I'm not into Alt-J, but I love the other two!

I posted this thread because when I mentioned this sentiment in a profile post, a couple people said they were also experiencing the same thing. So I was just curious.

There's of course a ton of music out there, but it's harder to find older music as recommendations are usually new releases. I dig pretty hard where I can.

 

I don't know if you have tried Roon yet, but that's an easy way to go down plenty of rabbit holes and end up finding music you didn't know about. When you're listening to a release you can click on information, it will list the people involved in the project, you can click on them and see the other projects they've been involved in, and just keep following that rabbit hole towards plenty of new stuff that's related to stuff that you already know you like.

 

I tried Roon and hate it because Tidal integration is God awful. And I don't use Qobuz much, they don't have a big enough music library. I listen to more than just f'ing audiophile jazz and classical. f**k you Qobuz.

I do check out "similar artist" lists in Amazon Music, Tidal, Spotify, etc, but rarely find anything I like. And the playlists on all streaming services are just repetitive stuff I already know or garbage IME.

 

I also wonder how much of this is due to certain recording contract limitations/stipulations/IP claims? I know nothing about the recording industry, but imagine if an artist's contract with a label required a certain amount of touring revenue to be generated between albums? And suppose they released an album just prior to COVID-19? Then 2 years of effectively not being able to tour, and not being allowed to release new material due to contract limitations? Like I said, I have no first hand or second hand knowledge of how this all works so call me an idiot if I am, but that scenario at least sounds plausible.

Edit: the other thing I've noticed over the past couple months with a lot of the artists I pay attention to is a smattering of singles coming out, portending quite a few albums coming out soon! (Max Cooper, I'm looking at you, pal. Oh and ODESZA! And Burial & Four Tet collab!).

 

I spend much less, maybe 2 hours every weekend. And I go by a list of newly released albums on Wikipedia, because I don't want to be limited to certain genres or music tastes by some recommendation algorithm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2021_albums_(January–June)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2021_albums_(July–December)

Usually on the weekend, I scour the list for albums newly released during the last week. Moving the mouse on the artist name opens a popup with short description - enough to rule out most stuff I'm not interested in. For interesting entries, I copy artist and album name into a YouTube search box. You can find >95% of newly released albums on YouTube these days.

If I like what I'm hearing after 2 or 3 songs, the album goes on my playlist for further in-depth listening. Using this method, I found plenty of good new albums for my taste last year.

(Unfortunately, the Wikipedia lists leave out most jazz and classical releases, so I browse some other sites for those, too.)

 

I've had good experience with Qobuz and I don't listen to Jazz or Classical at all. They have almost everything that I search for.

I use rateyourmusic.com/new-music/ to find new releases that are generating buzz. I definitely don't take the ratings too seriously, but I like checking out what other people are rating highly.

 

i don’t want to derail the thread but I have a Qobuz subscription and they have like 40% or less of what I listen to. I use them only as a way to separate ambient music from the rest of my collection. But Tidal still has a better library of ambient type stuff.

I would LOVE it if Qobuz had the same library as Tidal/Spotify/Amazon Music/Apple Music/etc and I’m not sure why they don’t if Spotify can. But until then I have to stomach the MQA BS.

 

I know this is going to sound a little preachy, but I tend to support the services I'd like to see succeed, rather than the services I have to "stomach" (e.g. Apple, Amazon, Tidal, etc.). Qobuz has been getting better every day, and they can't do that without subscriptions. I know I might be flushing money down the toilet on a (comparatively) subpar library, but if I find an artist that intrigues me, i'll just pop over to bandcamp and grab an album. no different than buying a CD on a lark from Waxie Maxie's back in the day.

 

I have both Qobuz and Tidal subscriptions. But really am I supposed to pay for something I can’t use?

I’m only able to steam at the moment unfortunately (I still buy albums on bandcamp i just can’t listen to them now) keeping up with downloaded music isn’t possible for me right now for reasons I won’t go into.

I like the sentiment sort of but I’m not sure Qobuz is getting better. They’re going to go out of business is the unfortunate reality.

 

No, you're not alone. I created the best music of 2020 and 2021 thread for this very reason. Alas, it didn't take, although the few contributions that were posted are awesome.

I've not been out and about as much recently and I used to listen to new music while on the go or commuting. The other problem is streaming. I don't spend the time I used to listening to music that I might like if I were more patient and if I were forced to listen to it all the way through. Also, in your "What happened to rock music thread?" I posted about how there's lots of great music these days but that there are few good, coherent entire albums. I tend to buy just one or two songs and move on, which gets tiring. It feels like I'm skimming the surface and not really digging deeply enough, constantly moving on from one thing to the next. There's just too much out there.

Honestly, you've probably been the best source of new music for me recently. (I add your recommendations to a playlist and listen to it when going out for walks, often the half-hour walk over to UPS to send on loaner gear). I hope the following goes some way to reciprocating:

It's a hangover from growing up in England but BBC radio is a good source for new tunes. BBC Radio 6 is good. Here's a list of best albums from last year. It's no bad thing that Iggy Pop has his own programme. I miss John Peel.

More from the UK: Resident Records in Brighton is a great store. They do well to publicize less well known and local bands, and I've posted before about their excellent Annual series of their favorite releases of the year, which is good for keeping up with the UK music scene. Somehow NME still exists and while I don't read it often, I do check out some of its best of lists from time to time.

US radio stations such as KEXP are great, and I check in with Bob Boilen's mixes on NPR every once in a while.

Away from indie/alternative rock, the twin Soul Jazz and Sounds of the Universe label releases are great, especially for African and Latin American music. They have great compilations and retrospectives. If I were to win the lottery I'd buy the lot.

This won't be news to you but bandcamp's recommendations and lists (also here) are helpful. I get overwhelmed by all the music on bandcamp in particular. This website on factmag used to offer some recommendations but I haven't kept up with it and don't know if it's ongoing or up to date.

A few music websites are worth checking out. I quite like The Line of Best Fit and Brooklyn Vegan. Stereogum used to be decent but it's gotten annoying in the last couple of years.

One of my favorite things ever to happen with the internet were mp3 blogs back in the early noughties. A few of them are soldiering on still. Matthew Perpetua keeps plugging away gamely on Fluxblog. Said the Gramophone usually puts out a good end-of-year favorite tracklist. Soul Sides is invariably excellent. Nialler 9 keeps up with contemporary Irish indie rock. There are also Gorilla vs. Bear, Aquarium Drunkard, and La Blogothèque out of France, among many others. Most are extinct now.

Part of my problem in finding new music is that my favorite record store in NYC - Rough Trade - moved from its awesome old store in Crooklyn to a pissant shoebox in rockefeller center. The old place was huge, with lots of listening stations, interesting recommendations, and great staff who were a pleasure to talk to. The new place is a soulless, deathless midtown corporate shoebox. You can find new releases on their website. I'll keep supporting them because, depressingly, the small, independent stores selling new music are almost extinct now (and this in the second largest city in North America).

 

There's lots of interesting new jazz this year. Thanks go out to Qobuz for making it available.

 

The same thing happened to me about the same time I started getting old.

 

I never found Spotify's "Release Radar" or Tidal's "New Arrivals" very appealing.
But since I switched to Deezer I'm looking forward to their "New Music Friday" every week and so far found interesting new artists/titles every week.
This comes with the caveat, that I made the switch only a couple of weeks ago and might still be in the honeymoon phase.

 

Heh, calling Spoon a newish band. They formed in 1993 and I remember listening to their releases 20 years ago while in grad school.

I thought 2021 was a pretty good year on the indie rock front. Then again, I always tend to gravitate to noise pop/shoegaze and neo-psychedleia.

Some releases I enjoyed last year:

93MillionMilesFromTheSun: Nick Noble release a few EP last year that were consistently good especially if you enjoy shoegaze.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE_ez3pqhFM

Fat Soul - Electric Light & Magic: Pretty good neo-psychedelia.


Film School - We Weren't Here: They flit between shoegaze and post-punk over their career. Their latest release is one of their strongest albums


Fleeting Joys - All Lost Eyes and Glitter: Shoegaze veterans release yet another strong album, especially for those who love My Bloody Valentine


Joy Formidable - Into the Blue: For those who like face-melting rock. This band is still banging out great tunes.


Tommy Guerrero - Sunshine Radio: Yes, that Tommy Guerrero of Powel Peralta's Bones Brigade fame from the '80s. Chilled out tunes that really puts a capper after listening to harder-tinged stuff.


Wednesday - Twin Plagues: The rest of the album has pretty good variety of styles other than the shoegaze-inspired track I posed below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPf9lpRuPls

I have many more recs, but I think this will do for now (limited by # of media I can post)....

(163 albums from 2021 in my aggregated rock genre playlist):

 

Agree that good new music seems to be tougher to find in the past year or so but then I've also noticed that in e.g., the clothing industry and dare I say it (with the exception of ETA and a couple of others) that the audiophile industry feels a bit dry recently.

On sourcing new (electronic) music generally: I have 6 or 7 YouTube channels that I follow then look for other channels who have also posted anything I like to find more channels posting similar music. I will also look for those artists on Bandcamp, add them to my wishlist and look for other people who have similar collections and start listening to their collections. I'll also look at the record label the artists are on and go through that record label's catalogue (Discogs is exceptional for this.) Also on Discogs a record you like might be on someone's list 'Best records of '91' or whatever - and I'll go listen to that list. Discogs will also show aliases for a particular artist or group and you can start hunting around their aliases too and the people they have collaborated with and your net gets wider and wider - Discogs really is an amazing rabbit hole of new music.

Outside of that SoundCloud sometimes has stuff that just doesn't feature anywhere else and I'll look at new recommended releases on Boomkat (their best sellers too), Phonica, Resident, Good Morning Tapes, etc. etc.

Someone mentioned John Peel earlier - I also miss him. By a curious coincidence he went to the same school as me (30 years earlier) but then lived on the same London street as me - unfortunately I was too young to know who he was.

Edit: will also add BBC Radio 6.