Where to Find New Music

by Colleen Clark

With the pressure on radio station's to play hits and the current state of the music industry, very few songs make it to the airwaves. So what can you do when you get tired of the radio's "Top 40" songs? How do you find new music the radio stations ignore? Here are six great resources for music lovers:

University radio stations. Check out what the kids are listening to by tuning in to college radio. Advertising doesn't fund most university stations, so not only do you skip commercials, only a student DJ decides what you hear. One hour might be rock, the next rap and then perhaps country. Given the diversity of student tastes, don't be surprised to hear less common genres such as zydeco, reggaeton and hyphy.

Pandora Radio. This online music website helps you find new music suited to your tastes. Enter an artist, album or song you love, and Pandora suggests other songs it thinks you might like based on hundreds of traits, such as melody, rhythm, harmony, orchestration, instrumentation and lyrics. Pandorahas spent 10 years analyzing and categorizing music as part of the Music Genome Project.

You can give Pandora's suggestions a thumbs up or down so the service can better recommend other songs. While you may not like everything you hear, and some songs may not be new to you, you're bound to find at least one new artist that could become your favorite.

MySpace. There's more to MySpace than just being Facebook's less popular predecessor. It still offers loads of music to explore, ranging from popular bands that have found radio airtime to unknowns with one or two songs to their credit.

MySpace is best for finding songs you haven't heard by artists you already know. Check out an artist's MySpace page to listen to full versions of a selection of their songs, which beats the 30-second preview you find on many other sites. If you want to invest in a CD after listening, you can message them for purchasing details, or jump to their iTunes page. The MySpace page also provides general artist news and lists where they're performing.

Perez Hilton. Celebrity blogger and "Queen of all Media" Perez Hilton not only dishes the dirt on your favorite celebrities, but also has the beat on what's musically hot and which unknown artists could climb the charts. Lady Gaga? People who follow Perez Hilton heard of her back in the summer of 2008.

His tastes are broad — some pop, some techno, some indie, some rap, some Spanish language, some dance, some rock and some of everything else. While his music suggestions are interspersed with his gossipy posts, you can narrow your search by looking for categories such as "Music Minute." Peruse PerezHilton.com and be among the first to know who — and what — is destined to be hot.

Personal music collections and the public library. These two places are obviously different, but their advantages are similar — free access to full albums of music you might never have heard of. Your family's and friends' CD collections offer a diverse selection, as do the CDs you can borrow at no charge from the library. You might be surprised at what you find — you might come to share a parent's love of Latin music or discover that your child loves country music, of all things. At the library, you can discover new CDs from artists you love or pick a CD based solely on the interesting cover art to see if you like it.

Freelance writer Colleen Clark specializes in fashion, beauty, entertainment and travel. Read about her travels through Europe at Clark on a Lark.