How do You choose what album you will look/listen to?

[craola]

I generally go to a variety of sources for new music. In no particular order:

Friends
I have a half-dozen friends with great taste in music, and they're constantly hunting for good stuff and passing it my way. I may never have discovered The Cocteau Twins or Balam Acab if not for some good friends.

Dad
I wasn't alive for The Beatles, Coltrane, Floyd or The Smiths, but my dad was. He's helped give me perspective on the past and has always recommended me high quality music from the days of the dinosaurs. Most notably, he got me turned onto Peter Gabriel's work (solo and Genesis), Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd in addition to a billion other artists.

The Needle Drop
What I love about Anthony Fantana is that he's just one guy with an opinion. He's very opinionated, but he's got good taste, and he admits that everything he says is nothing more than his own personal rhetoric. He's got a channel on Youtube and posts daily. Recently, he got me hooked on Melt-Banana.

Youtube
I usually use this in conjunction with other sources, but just about every album is on Youtube these days. If I get a rec, I go there ASAP. If I like the album, I go to my local record store and pick up a copy. I stumbled onto Cloud Cult for the first time over at Youtube. The Avalanches is another group I first found on Youtube (who could forget Frontier Psychiatrist?)

Everyday Music
Speaking of local record store, Everyday Music is another place to find new music. This is the local shop near my crib. It seems they're always playing something I've never heard before when I go inside, and they are staffed with genuine music-nerds. I first found Arcade Fire and Guillemots at EM.

Pitchfork
As a rule, I don't take much stock in critics like Pitchfork who make money doing reviews. It's not hard for record companies to send cash Pitchfork's way to inflate the scores for their acts (i.e. Sub Pop used to be one of their biggest sponsors). Nonetheless, solely on account of the fact that Pitchfork reviews five new albums every day (25/week), I like to check in from time to time. Ignore the ratings and the review comments though. This is the site that first introduced me to Animal Collective nearly a decade ago.

Best Ever Albums
This is a good place to find recommendations. I generally find charts that I find really interesting and mine the stuff I haven't heard yet. I discovered Moondog and Stina Nordenstam here among others, and there have been many others.

Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that takes an aggregate score of all the music critics out there that they can dig up. Unfortunately, their lists tend to reflect old news, but occasionally, I'll come across something I missed the first time around. It was through Metacritic that I first came across Mariam and Amadou.

Pandora
This has got to be the worst place to find new music, but there are rare occasions on which something pops up here. I found My Brightest Diamond through Pandora, so it's not all bad.

[pa]

[nitro2k11]

Album Cover, and genre obviously.
Or my dad I usually like the same stuff as him (his favorite band is White Zombie if that says anything)
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[zdwyatt]

I do most of my exploratory listening at work, since I'm sitting in front of a computer all day. Google Play Music is my go-to subscription service. For the current year, I have a playlist of new releases that I listen to on shuffle. Eventually, albums will emerge that deserve a proper listen. In any given year, I usually buy somewhere between five and ten physical albums based on my listening throughout the year.

If I'm not in the mood for new stuff, I work my way through the best albums of years past. Because the volume can be overwhelming, I focus on years full decades behind the current year. So this year I've been listening to a lot of 1974 and 1984. I was already collecting albums by 1994, so it and 2004 have been thoroughly explored.

Every night during dinner, we listen to an album from our physical collection. It's a way to unwind after work, and a fun way to expose the kids to the classics. For example, I recently discovered that my two-year-old loves Purple Rain.

[Charicature]

Usually by hearing a couple songs, liking them and deciding I want to hear more.

Used to be just one song but I got burned too often.

Occasionally now I've listened to albums everyone praises on this board to see what all the hubbub's about. Found a couple good ones this way but mostly I just find a massive generation gap in tastes that I can't overcome no matter how many chances I give things.
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[CripplingAutism]

I try to go by the album cover/band name/album name looks interesting, though sometimes I'll take recs from friends.
I also keep a list of any bands that sound interesting to look into on my phone and computer, for organization purposes, butI only use it for bands who's music I don't have immediate access to their music, otherwise I will do a quick Spotify/youtube/various archival site search to download a few albums.

[SuedeSwede]

[Kiki]

I only use BEA right now to find albums. Mostly going around looking myself. Rarely people will ask me to listen to albums. Most people have charts to find albums on.

[meattrain]

On What.CD, I download based off my friends recs. On last.fm, I look at the similar artists. On Soulseek, I see under the user i've downloaded and see what else they have up. I do some research, I might listen to it if sounds interesting enough. It's mostly through wandering around. I might stumble on something on accident. I might attend a share thread on /mu/ here and there. I might ask someone for a rec if I think they have good taste and etc.

[CripplingAutism]