How To Find New Music Artists You Will Love!

Welcome to my first blog post. I am a yapper barely figuring out HTML, but I hope you enjoy!

Have you ever been listening to a song or artist over and over and over again, wishing you could have infinite music from them to experience? Have you ever thought, “Man, I need to find more songs that sound like this one, songs that create the same feelings. But how?” Discovering new artists you like is usually a slow, natural process or one that takes dedicated intention. Sure, there are Spotify radios and recommended playlists, but algorithmic selection unsurprisingly flops a lot of the time.

I first felt this in my post-high-school return to being emo, listening to the same music I had 10 years earlier. It's great to reminisce and appreciate my favorites, and even discover old gems I hadn’t noticed before, but I wanted more. The band Pierce The Veil has always had a special place in my heart, and they still do! I never went to any concerts or music festivals as a teen, so naturally, when I got my adult money, I saw them on tour twice. I love all their releases, new and old, but a part of me felt neglectful in only paying attention to an artist I was so familiar with. The whole world is not just them. I love their music because it is unique to them, but I was getting really nerdy about the subgenre and music influences that contributed to their sound as well, so what other music was out there that could offer the same fascination? 

In pursuit of finding my preferred sound, I have found some solutions! Turns out, the answer to this question is pretty simple, and there are 3 pretty solid directions you could go in:

Method #1: Go to the artist’s record label (if they have one) and listen to everyone else they have signed.

For a while, Pierce The Veil was signed to Equal Vision Records, which signs a lot of post-hardcore bands. Even though PTV has moved on to a different label, I am now a fan of like 6 different active Equal Vision (now partnered with Kill Iconic Records) artists. I could have started here to find more of the sound I love, but I actually found my now current favorite band through method #3.

Method #2: Check producer & writing credits on your favorite songs and albums. 

I am a big R&B lover too, so when I was tired of playing the same Kehlani songs over and over again, I went looking for those responsible for the whole picture. I was actually inspired by a Terrell Show interview of the artist Ambre, who retold her writing process of the song Water by Kehlani (one of my favorite songs!!). I was like “whoa whoa whoa, she wrote this?”. From then on, I went on to delve into Ambre’s discography and had a new obsession and artist to look after from then on. This applies to entire albums as well. I have found that people like Mike Green and Kris Krummet have produced some of my favorite post-hardcore albums, so it makes sense to check out other projects they produced that I haven’t heard yet.

Method #3: RateYourMusic.com

This is actually how I found Hail The Sun when I was on the hunt for something similar to PTV (when I could have just browsed Equal Vision’s artist page). This is definitely the nerdiest way to do it. You can enter an album you particularly enjoy, and there are specific genres and descriptor tags associated with it. There is a pretty cool search feature where you can filter albums by a combination of genre, descriptor/mood, and time scale. 

I started with my favorite album of all time, Selfish Machines. For this album, the genres listed are Post-Hardcore, Mall Screamo, and Swancore. I was familiar with the first two genres, and when you click on them, you can see every album with that tag, and lists based on chronological release date and their ranking by user rating. The first two genres have an understandably huge amount of albums, but the third genre, Swancore, was a mystery to me. 

RateYourMusic basically provides a whole wiki entry on the coining and definition of the genre, so that was fascinating and really helped me connect the dots on why I like specific bands and where their influences originated. Methods 1 & 2 can be seen within Swancore’s definition, as the namesake of this genre revolves around Blue Swan records, its founder, Will Swan, and musicians he had played with/signed. I went down a line of the top-ranked Swancore albums, and there was one band that really caught my eye. My ear? HAIL THE SUN! Their 2012 album Wake is indeed the top-ranked Swancore album, but I saw they were coming out with a new album, Divine Inner Tension, soon at the time. I quickly took to the new singles as they came out, and random pulls from the rest of their discography up until their release. Almost 3 years and 3 concerts later, I am still obsessed with Hail The Sun! So much so that I am doing a video review of their latest album release and tour, Cut. Turn. Fade. Back. Sometime this week… so stay tuned for a link to the album review!

xoxoxoxo

Thanks for reading through all that. If you did, consider subscribing to my blog! I want to write frequently so I can have a less cluttered brain and practice articulating my thoughts clearly. My blog will likely just be me being a music and cartoon nerd, with occasional silly theories and hot takes.