what are some excellent places on then internet to talk about music?

March 6, 2008 6:43 AM

i want to find some good music forums online.

i'm a musician/dj, and i live in the 3rd world. thus, i dont get to hear a lot of new music in random places (clubs, stores, record shops, radio stations etc) like i would in a big city or college town. the best way i've found to keep up with various music scenes, as well as finding good random recommendations, is through music forums, such as this one:

forums.SOHH.com

however, i'm pretty dissapointed with the results i'm getting from google. the above forum seems ok, but none of the ones i've found seem as good as the few i used to hang out on (before they changed for various reasons)

i figure it's probably a word-of-keyboard thing, so i'm asking you guys if you can recommend some good ones. i'm specifically looking for a good forum for each of the following genres/concepts:

1. rap/r&b
2. dance music (house/electro/minimal/d&b etc)
3. indie/alternative
4. world music
5. professional musicians talking about their jobs

ideally they would cover both popular and obscure/edgy ends of the genre spectrum (though one for mainstream and one for edgy would be ok) and be populated by interesting, friendly, knowledgable people with better stuff to do than start flame wars or spam me with ads.

i'm sure they're out there! any ideas?


ps. i did google "genrename forum" for each genre, and wasn't too impressed after digging around in the sites towards the top of the results - i basically spent an entire evening googling, clicking and bookmarking, but didn't come up with any forums that really wowed me. though if i'm being too hasty to dismiss something obvious, feel free to let me know i'm not giving it enough of a chance.

posted by messiahwannabe to computers & internet (14 answers total)

I Love Music (general) has a good reputation, as does Soul Strut (crate-digger stuff, mostly) and Okayplayer (hip-hop, mostly)
posted by box at 6:53 AM on March 6, 2008

I'll second I Love Music - the ilxor.com boards are so much fun - lots of minor celebs post (John Darnielle, Momus, lots of mag reviewers). The 'I Make Music' board on same root url may meet your item five requirements, but postings there lately have been few.

The offshoot of Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot's 'Sound Opinions' show has a great web forum - http://soundopinions.org/forum - lots of good discussion and varied topics.
posted by mctsonic at 7:39 AM on March 6, 2008

I came in here to say I Love Music also. And I see it's unnecessary. But I'll say it anyway, just to drive home the point that ILM is the right answer to your question. It'll be better for 2&3 than 1&4 on your list though.
posted by escabeche at 7:48 AM on March 6, 2008

The Velvet Rope should satisfy #5. It's an industry board devoted to the music industry. There are forums for music, movies, Nashville and touring to name a few.
posted by Atom12 at 8:13 AM on March 6, 2008

I really enjoy the Indiefeed podcast. I have discovered a lot of new music through them. They cover a lot of genres and the DJs usually say something about the artist between the tracks.
posted by thenuts at 8:23 AM on March 6, 2008

n+1 to i love music.
you say you are a dj - you might want to check out the hollerboard , frequented by working club djs, run by low budget. it focuses on club tracks with exclusive remixes and production by forum members. hollerboard also has all of the categories and genres you asked for, as well as other subforums for discussion about the dj industry and promotion.
posted by stachemaster at 8:26 AM on March 6, 2008

I personally cannot stand ILM. I'd recommend Sound Opinions or
At Ease (the general site is Radiohead-centric, but the message board has an even larger Off Topic section) That requires a quick registration to browse.
posted by yeti at 8:28 AM on March 6, 2008

ILX
posted by ludwig_van at 8:56 AM on March 6, 2008

For electronics: Disception (detroit techno and uk focus), Little Detroit (detroit techno and uk focus), Rhythmist (possibly NYC centric), Resident Advisor (has podcasts!), DarkTrain (underworld-associated), erutufon (cristian vogel-associated)
posted by mkb at 9:21 AM on March 6, 2008

Correct link for the Velvet Rope.
posted by LuckySeven~ at 9:23 AM on March 6, 2008

D'oh! Thanks.
posted by Atom12 at 11:28 AM on March 6, 2008

Sputnik Music and Musician Forums are very comprehensive and seem to be pretty sweet.

If you can score an invite to waffles.fm or what.cd, both of them have active music chat forums as well.
posted by streetdreams at 7:15 PM on March 6, 2008

The electrical audio forum is fun sometimes.
posted by ifjuly at 8:53 PM on March 7, 2008

thanks for all the answers guys!

-mw
posted by messiahwannabe at 3:53 AM on March 8, 2008