All of the streaming services are awful at discovery. They'll introduce you to stuff that you already like or stuff that people in your cohort like, which, 90% of the time, is what you already like.
I landed up going back to college/community radio for true discovery (i.e. you'll find stuff you hate AND stuff that you love from genres that you didn't know existed). I use Bandcamp to find/buy new music in genres I love and know well.
For people reading this who are interested in trying this out, these are the stations that I listen to:
- KEXP (Seattle, WA/Bay Area)
- KTRU (Houston, TX) <-- home station
- KPFT (Houston, TX) <-- home station
- WMSE (Milwaukee, WI)
- WYEP (Pittsburgh, PA)
- KVNO (Omaha, NE) <-- classical
- KCSM (San Mateo Area) <-- jazz
- SomaFM Indie Pop Rocks!
- SomaFM Metal Detector
You can also try scanning the lower end of your radio dial (under 93 MHz), as this is usually spectrum that's reserved for community and college radio stations. Some college stations still broadcast in AM, though this, and AM radio writ large, is dying out.
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While I'm on this soapbox: Apple Music's shuffle absolutely biases towards bigger/more popular artists.
I once had a few (like, between 10 and 20) Taylor Swift songs in my library in a 2000+ song playlist I used to shuffle in the mornings. I don't listen to her very often, and I didn't have any of her albums in my library at the time.
EVERY SINGLE TIME I'd shuffle all of the songs in this playlist or my library, Taylor Swift would get queued up way more than she should have given my listening history. I removed all of her songs from my library to get it to stop.
I get much more variety when I shuffle all of my _downloaded_ songs (which, I believe, is everything in my library).
Thanks for plugging local radio that also stream! I support my local radio as well and for the same reasons: discovery. Listener supported also has the benefit of zero ads.
> The FCC policy covering broadcasting stations limits them to call signs that start with a "K" or a "W", with "K" call signs generally reserved for stations west of the Mississippi River, and "W" limited to stations east of the river.
This is a relatively new invention as well. When radio first started in the US (late 1890s), callsigns were arbitrary. I believe the Kxxx and Wxxx divide started in the 1920s. Also, this callsign convention applies for TV broadcast as well.
I landed up going back to college/community radio for true discovery (i.e. you'll find stuff you hate AND stuff that you love from genres that you didn't know existed). I use Bandcamp to find/buy new music in genres I love and know well.
For people reading this who are interested in trying this out, these are the stations that I listen to:
- KEXP (Seattle, WA/Bay Area)
- KTRU (Houston, TX) <-- home station
- KPFT (Houston, TX) <-- home station
- WMSE (Milwaukee, WI)
- WYEP (Pittsburgh, PA)
- KVNO (Omaha, NE) <-- classical
- KCSM (San Mateo Area) <-- jazz
- SomaFM Indie Pop Rocks!
- SomaFM Metal Detector
You can also try scanning the lower end of your radio dial (under 93 MHz), as this is usually spectrum that's reserved for community and college radio stations. Some college stations still broadcast in AM, though this, and AM radio writ large, is dying out.
---
While I'm on this soapbox: Apple Music's shuffle absolutely biases towards bigger/more popular artists.
I once had a few (like, between 10 and 20) Taylor Swift songs in my library in a 2000+ song playlist I used to shuffle in the mornings. I don't listen to her very often, and I didn't have any of her albums in my library at the time.
EVERY SINGLE TIME I'd shuffle all of the songs in this playlist or my library, Taylor Swift would get queued up way more than she should have given my listening history. I removed all of her songs from my library to get it to stop.
I get much more variety when I shuffle all of my _downloaded_ songs (which, I believe, is everything in my library).