My connection says no but my ears say yes.

December 14, 2009 6:19 AM

Discovering new music on a (bandwidth) budget: how best to do it? Tips and tricks please.

I love discovering music on the Internet, but I've been very spoiled, being habituated to having a great connection where I can effortlessly listen to streaming music on Pandora, Hype Machine, last.fm, Youtube, etc. Currently I have a terrible connection (usually less than 100 kbps) that doesn't allow me to stream music extemporaneously, and video is even less practical. What I'm basically asking for is, how do you maintain the same open attitude towards discovering new music if you have to do it all the more intentionally? That is, since I now have to go out of my way to wait around a few minutes for a song to load up, it feels like more of a chore than an excitement, and I end up just not doing it because it's too irritating. Any ideas? Suggestions both organizational and technological are welcome. Thanks!

posted by threeants to media & arts (8 answers total)

What's your current location? What phone do you have? I've had good luck streaming Pandora on my iPhone using the 3G connection... not as high quality as on a good wi-fi connection, true, but it doesn't skip or anything.
posted by olinerd at 6:23 AM on December 14, 2009

I have an internet connection with bandwidth limits. To keep from going over, I usually wait to listen to Pandora/HypeMachine until I go out for coffee. I only spend a couple hours a month listening to new music, but I still discover new bands.

Also, does your town have a university radio station? I've discovered lots of music that way.

If you have an iPhone, there is a Pandora app.

Paste Magazine comes gives you a physical CD with each issue.* Their CDs are pretty hit and miss for me but cover many different genres. I've found some bands through Paste CDs that I never would have found otherwise.


*For an extra $1 a month, I believe.
posted by mmmbacon at 6:30 AM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Having no idea what sort of music you like, let me throw two of the music blogs I regularly download albums from up for your perusal. Most of the posted albums have sample tracks to listen to and the user reviews are usually fairly accurate (although bolachas followers seem to be laying down the ratings hate the past few days).

www.bolachas.org

http://calmintrees.blogspot.com/

Give us an idea of what you're into and someone might be able to suggest better music blogs for you.
posted by Derive the Hamiltonian of... at 7:32 AM on December 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Alan Cross (of The Ongoing History of New Music fame) has a blog called Explore Music, which includes a daily "5 Songs You Gotta Hear Today" update.
posted by rocket88 at 8:02 AM on December 14, 2009

mmmbacon beat me to recommending Paste Magazine! I usually find that out of 20 or so tracks on the Samplers, I love 5, enjoy 12, and find the remained 3 unbearable. Also, you can read the actual articles for ideas on what artists to try online, so you can prioritize your bandwith usage.

[full disclosure: I have interned for Paste. But I was a fangirl of Paste for four years before I interned, and I would recommend them anyway).
posted by fantine at 8:16 AM on December 14, 2009

olinerd: my current location is in France. My phone is not one that has Internet. Actually, the whole reason my Internet connection sucks is because I have 3G for my laptop.

others: thanks for the suggestions so far! They're great. I wish I could give you a genre or something to help narrow down, but really I'm open to pretty much anything. Hmm, maybe things I don't really like: overly cynical "indie" (as in the sound, not the attribute) music, virtuosic wankery, European radio-pop, reggae/dub (though I'd love to change my mind), boring rock (like Coldplay or latterday U2).
posted by threeants at 9:16 AM on December 14, 2009

I'm not familiar with French radio at all, but you might take a look at the websites of your local stations and check out their programming schedules. See if they have some sort of new/local music show, and if they do, try to make time to check that out.
posted by clorox at 1:30 PM on December 14, 2009

Do you have unlimited bandwidth on your 3G connection? In other words, your problem is just that it's too slow to stream reliablly/conveniently, not that you're in danger of running up service charges?

If that's the case, I would recommend finding a few sources of somewhat reliable music exposure for your tastes, and downloading whatever tracks/samplers they're promoting for offline listening later. If there are a large number of songs/files, simply queue them before bedtime and let the laptop run overnight. Then you'll have a nice folder full of new tunes to try out on your laptop in the morning.

For example, Pitchfork is a famous indie music review site that posts tons of MP3 samples, singles, etc... Simply look through the site and queue up the tracks you want to hear before bed. A decent download manager would help here as well. (Note: Pitchfork was just an example; replace it with whatever music magazine/blog/website caters to your particular tastes)

Furthermore, I'm not sure how you feel about Bittorrent/filesharing, but there are plenty of torrent trackers whose users compile and post packages/mixes, e.g. "Top 100 indie tracks of 2009", in one downloadable package. Start that before bed and you've got plenty to listen to the next day.

(Note: I'm not encouraging illegal downloading, just mentioning that as an option. Bittorrent/filesharing is a fantastic way to sample or hear new music that you can purchase later if you enjoy).

A great option would be a DRM-subscription service, like Zune Pass or Rhapsody (note: not sure if these services work in France, though I don't know of what origin your ISP/3G connection is). For a small fee ($10-20/month) you get unlimited access to whatever music you want, period. You could, again, browse & stream/sample as you like, and then queue album downloads before bed. Most of these services have great recommendation functions built in, so you can find new things based off your current preferences.
posted by sprocket87 at 7:25 AM on December 15, 2009