While my musical appetite is omnivorous, my tastes in reading about new music are comparatively spartan.
Here are my favorite sources for reading about new music:
- The Wire
- The Quietus
- Bleep (especially their weekly email roundup)
- Boomkat (ditto)
- Bandcamp (also my favorite place to buy music)
- Pitchfork
- Friends (like Joe Surdna, Stephen Mejias, and John DeVore)
What are your favorite sources for reading about new music?
Love Bandcamp. Roon and Tidal are very fun tools for discovery. I do read Pitchfork. Oh, and the next big thing in hifi? Music 😉
The next big thing in hifi is such a silly question, isn’t it 😉
Old guy with old ways: I still watch Rolling Stone for new reviews and like the paper/ink version of Q Magazine. Q has lists of “if you like ‘this,’ you might like ‘that’ and I go with it. I also read Vinyl Factory’s articles and recommendations. I think Vinyl Factory might catch your fancy in a big way! My audio friend, Alan, gives me a list of “things to check out” and then I roam The interwebs reading.
I also use audio gear reviews to see what the reviewers used and commented upon.
Strange confession: After reading about a record, I typically buy it rather than listen in the web. Listening to snippets or being too quick to judge with an online listen has not served me well, and I like supporting artists. Buying makes me a more ‘committed’ listener and I enjoy the cohesion of album listening. Sitting down with a disc or LP makes my relationship to the music a bit more formal and perhaps I am more attentive when entering into a new listening relationship that way. I realize it is a bit odd…but it makes my wife chuckle when I load up some physical medium and announce that ‘we have never heard this before!’
I have learned to stream Tidal, but even that seems less intimate.
Confession endeth
I love Vinyl Factory! I should have put it on my list so thank you for adding it!
Anton, thanks for the tip on Vinyl Factory I am listening to one of their Spotify playlists right now.
I also like Uncut and Mojo (Mulvey’s Playlists at mojo4music.com) and NPR.
No Friday morning is complete without checking the week’s new releases on the Boomkat site. Apart from a great selection of left field titles to buy or download they have a preview facility so you can listen to snippets.
There’s so much choice nowadays that the importance of human curation has never been greater. So though I do play from time to time with algorithmic recommendation tools, I find my time is much better spent following the recommendations and suggestions of people that I trust:
* Alex Ross, NY Times, author of The Rest is Noise, etc. – @alexrossmusic
* Gramophone mag’s monthly choices
* Jason Serinius, Stereophile – for his record recommendations rather than hifi reviews – https://www.stereophile.com/writer/119
* Tom Service – music critic on The Guardian etc. – e.g. 50 Symphonies series
* PrestoClassical is also good place to start when looking for the “best” version of multiply-recorded works