How to get into hipster/undergound/niche music

Using every single word I can for that concept...

I know we had a "getting into Death Metal" thread earlier, but I want to expand that to all non-mainstream music.

You see, the problem is that my only reliable method for discovering new music is through the radio, limiting my vision to pop music, mainstream classic rock, mainstream modern rock, mainstream lite rock, and mainstream country. And I don't like the last one.

I know there are excellent artists out there that are really popular but not on the radio. Can you help me and others?

How do you get into hipster music? Don't.

But seriously... Go on You Tube. Look up those artists who are popular but not on the radio. Look at the suggestions next to the video and see if there's anything you find interesting.

While I would take their opinions of artists and albums with a healthy amount of skepticism, Pitchfork does an admirable job of bringing to the public conscious good artists. I'd recommend the Best New Music section, and read the reviews to see if the description appeals to you.

• Pandora
• Friends
• Talk to people in record stores
• Scour the internet and grab every piece of music you can find
• Indie movies
  • Indie movie soundtracks
• College radio stations
• Ask people online for recommendations
• Look at the influences of artists you may already know (Kurt Cobain and his musical interests are a great start)
• Look at what bands are associated with acts you like
• Look at the opening acts for live shows of bands you like.
• Make it yourself

Everything Odd 1 said.

I've found Allmusic is a good resource for finding and following those "Band A was influenced by bands X, Y, and Z" connections.

Allmusic is just a fantastic site in general.

(Though I find it weird how they used to have every British Beatles album rated perfectly even if their reviews didn't match up with that.)

This may sound a bit dodgy, but find a blog or something that reviews one specific type of music. These will often review not only the entry-level versions of an 'underground' genre, but will go a bit more in depth as well. Whether or not you agree with the reviews, they can often give you a nod to some hidden gems.

From the Dust Returned is one of my favourites for metal. Maybe some other tropers can nod you towards some other specialist review sites for other genres.

edited 3rd Oct '14 12:42:20 AM by CardsOfWar

One thing that's helped me is finding blogs that post zips and RARs of obscure albums. This really helps more for discovering out-of-print, older, under-known albums that only got vinyl releases (and if you find an album on one that actually IS available for purchase somewhere, you should probably do that), but that music can lead you places. MusicForManiacs is a good one to try if you want some stuff that's way out there. And,speaking of which, Way Out Junk is another one, though that one has a lot more spoken word albums than music albums from what I remember. Wish I had my laptop on me, I have a text file with a list of blogs like that on there.

And obscure singles or EPs.

Gonna second Odd1's recommend on Allmusic, great site in general (though they get some things wrong, they're right more often than not), and it is very good for the whole "who influenced who" game, which is how I discover a lot of music... Also, blogs sometimes work pretty well, especially genre-themed ones. Finally, wikipedia's articles on specific genres are somewhat helpful for those looking to get into... well, specific genres.

edited 3rd Oct '14 12:35:16 PM by sharkcrap11

But Wikipedia is, as reminded to us constantly by our teachers, vulnerable to non-professional edits. How can that be useful?

It's not as inaccurate as people say, at least not with regards to music-related stuff (there aren't too many trolls and the like messing with those pages). Now, political and religious articles, THAT is another story...

I actually haven't seen many bad Wikipedia articles at all.

Some religious nut once erased the article on dinosaurs and replaced it with a single sentence to the effect of "Dinosaurs never existed, cause the bible doesn't say so." Not exact words, but I'm not lying here...

T'was good for a laugh... Mighta been a troll, though.

Back to the topic at hand though, wikipedia's music-related entries are generally pretty good, though some could use more Wiki Magic...

I'd say the Awesome Music section on This Very Wiki would be a good start too. 'Cause some of the artists with entries there (Qotsa, The National) are imho a good beginners point in "niche" music.

Music indexes here are also good. The summaries tend to be pretty aptly described, though can be heavy on references to genres a lot of people won't know about unless they're already in the scene to start with. Even so.

But me personally, I just look for crap. I got sick of the radio's genericism and started branching out for my own tastes. It's not all that hard, if your curious for music, then go take the plunge. And stay away from strictly review sites, confirmation bias can be a big roadblock imusic if you take them seriously and not as a general opinionated guide.

QOTSA are definitely kinda niche, not hipster though, by any means... Anyways, that page has some classic stuff on it, so I'll second that recommend.

I dunno, I really like Allmusic (at least some of the reviewers there seem willing to give many different things a chance), though most of the other sites are a little too hipster/metalhead/punk/insert-musical-subculture-here for my taste, and thus rather biased. Pitchfork is one fairly extreme example of a hipster bias, to list just one. But yeah, reviews are really just opinionated guides, and no more...

I've always hated it when music reviewers (or even just fans) act as though anything they say is anything other than their opinion, and I try to make it clear that anything I say about music is merely my opinion as well.

Youtube has generally been how I've discovered new music for the last six years or so. Before that it was MySpace. Another way though is picking a record label you like and sampling each band on it's roster. Doing that with Nuclear Blast and Metropolis records has helped me discover new bands too.

I'm just going to add another recommendation. Go to the Rate The Song Above You thread on this very wiki, and rate/post songs there. Just remember to try and keep an open mind about everything you come across on said thread.

edited 7th Oct '14 12:57:18 AM by CardsOfWar

Really, that last sentence is just good advice for listening to or discovering music in general.

So with Allmusic, is it totally okay to start with a mainstream artists, and work up with their influences?

That's for you to decide. There's no specific way you need to do it. However it feels natural for you, y'know?

The last few posts have pretty much all been good ways of finding new music. Sometimes sites like Last.fm and Grooveshark (and even Youtube, on occasion) will recommend interesting stuff similar to whatever you listened to last. I've found a few that way...

For me, getting into The Mountain Goats was due to hearing a few good tracks and getting hooked on them. But until recently, I haven't bothered touching his lo-fi tape recordings, because they gave me headaches and I was forcing entire albums down my throat as background music. The 2 may or may not be related, in hindsight.

I would recommend checking out some songs from an artist's early days, then some of the more recent stuff. If you can find something you like in those 2 periods, then it may be worth listening through some other songs from other albums. But try not to force yourself to listen to something, even if it's considered a classic or an otherwise well-liked band - I tried getting into something which was praised a few times in the earliest comics of Questionable Content, and I couldn't stand it.

Also - you might benefit from checking out A.V. Undercover on Youtube. Lots of indie bands show up and play covers of popular songs, and it's a good place to find bands you might like based on their musical style - I found Iron and Wine from their cover of a George Michael song.