Question

[broegaard]

Back in the 80s I did a lot(more than 500 - of tape trading). Basically with fans in Denmark and germany.

That's how I got familiar with bands(and then buy the vinyls - from the bands I liked). I assume that was illegal back then and illegal now.

Now tape trading is outdated. How do you get familiar with new bands?

Only listen to one song on youtube?
Only listen to extracts of the songs and make the decision?
Blind purchases? - I dont to it anymore.

 

[Bamafan]

My buying impulses are a mish mash. There are a few people who, if they say "buy this album", I will do it. Other times I listen to snippets. Other times I will do flat out blind buys.

 

[SkiBumMSP]

The internet certainly helps, especially with services like Amazon with their "If you liked this, you may also like that" type of features. I also have an eMusic account, which went a long ways towards finding and discovering music. They have gotten much better with "check this out as well" type of feature. Of course, forums, such as this one certainly helped to. I found out about a bunch of new bands just from reading this forum, and then going out to Amazon, YouTube, eMusic, etc to find samples (and sometimes complete album available for streaming) to listen. For example, that 'Fire breath' dude certainly has dug up some interesting gems he shared on here over the past few years that got me to go check out. And sometimes, I do 'blind buy', especially at the festival. That Teodor Tuff album I got off the Nightmare Records table was pretty much a blind buy, but on strong recommendation by Lance. Turned out that is probably one of the most kick-assed albums that I ended up buying in a long time! Even then, I found my self looking up bands right there in the vendor room on my iPhone when I saw something that looked interesting, but wanted to know more about.

 

[SeaStorm]

I find out about new bands (and new albums from bands I know) via YouTube, Facebook groups/pages dedicated to our genres, this forum, and Lance King. Because I'm in the same city as Lance, I get to peruse his stock in person several times a year. Lance knows what I like and he will often make a recommendation that I will blind buy, which will later knock my socks off (Soulspell comes to mind).

If I may make a pitch to y'all: when I joined all of the power/prog/symphonic metal Facebook groups/pages to find new music, I found that most of them were like finding a needle in a haystack. For every post about new bands/music, I'd have to wade through 10+ posts about press releases, touring info, interviews, reviews, local bands, 15 year old songs from YouTube, and fan debates. So, I started my own service to fill the niche that no one else is. If you want to check out my pages (facebook.com/PPSMetal and twitter.com/PPSMetal), we post usually every day, limit it to usually 1 per day, and we focus on NEW music only (from the current and previous calendar year).

My posting partner (Dan, who runs Black Wind Metal reviews) has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of power metal and I am continually amazed at what he comes up with. See the About tab on the FB page for more details on how we work hard to limit any junk so that you get "all killer, no filler" \m/

In the last week we have posted new videos from Teodor Tuff, Orden Ogan, Secret Sphere, Threshold, Seven Kingdoms, and Theocracy.

 

[dcowboys311]

There are certain people who's taste I trust almost more than my own. They find a band and recommend it, and I'm checking it out.
Zines, both print and online, are a massive source.
Forums are good but you have to filter through a lot of crap. Eventually you find posters who fit into the first category I mentioned.
Is there a certain style you're looking for? Or just metal in general?

 

[kashford]

Forums, last.fm. Been using Last.fm for 6 years, and its recommended me some great bands!

 

[Diamond45]

Looking here on this forum, reading about new bands...

Watching YouTube videos

Pandora Radio, Spotify, eMusic

Facebook

In some regard, the Internet has helped with discovering new bands.