Tips for those listening to new music

[Jimmy Dread]

One thing that's not really been addressed so far in relation to the OP is how we all find the music we love as opposed to how many listens one should give a specific album before you realise it's either genius or garbage (or more than likely somewhere between the two).

Aside from the obvious (charts on BEA, sites like Pitchfork et al), I wholeheartedly concur with Mecca's 'go with the label' stance, especially if what you're into is niche or you're looking for something specific based on previous discoveries. In fact for certain genres (indie-pop/twee especially) it's the easiest way of discovering something of the oeuvre of what you've enjoyed before, and more than likely will enjoy this time.

Bar that though, the other obvious place to go is the new releases page on any one of a number of on-line record stores. Not the obvious ones like Amazon, but the more specialist or independent retailers. I check the 'latest 100 arrivals' page for Ladbroke Grove's Honest Jon's on a daily basis, and enjoy having a flick through my regular list of the week's new releases that Rough Trade send me every Friday morning.

The other major source of new discovery for me since I joined BEA has been dubtrack and plug - if you click on my 'love letter to BEA' link below you'll see just how much of an influence it's been thanks to my BEAutiful friends from far and wide (and Nottingham).

To add my 2p worth to the 'how many times should I listen' argument, as I've got older and time's become more precious I've found that unless there is something to cling onto - a riff, a lyric, a beat - on first listen I'll less than likely bother with it again. I'll listen to every track of an LP just in case there's something buried deep down in the tracklisting that worth plundering for a homemade compy, but if it does nothing for me I'll very very rarely give it another go. And no way will I persevere with a record just because it's critically acclaimed or everyone else seems to like it. There's a number of LPs - mainly hip-hop - that do zilch for me, and would never have the urge to give another listen to no matter how many others told me how great it was.
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'Reggae' & t'ing
Folk 'n Stuff
SHAMELESS RECORD DEALER PLUG

[AMBNTnoises]

[carpents]

I too use Spotify to sometimes find 'Related Artists' but I wish there was something like what I had in Rdio (now defunct streaming service) with their 'Recommendations'. Spotify has a 'Discover' section but it's not as good IMO.

Pandora's streaming radio can occasionally find bands too, but I haven't listened to that in years. In addition to the annoying commercials, I like to listen to albums and hate the demise of the thought-out long player.

I will also look for a specific label, or look sometimes at producers. Yeah, if Steve Albini or Bob Weston produce an album I'll give it a shot -- no guarantee that I'll like it, but sometimes they can pull a great album from a mediocre band. And they have decent taste in bands.

There is also often a web of interconnections between bands that might help you discover new sounds. Allmusic is a great resource for following those.

[meccalecca]

[alelsupreme]

Honestly I very rarely use personal recs to discover stuff (I like to think this means my taste is simply too unique and estoeric for anyone to possibly think of anything I like yeah that's it). and mostly go for stuff from artists I've either heard before and want to explore more deeply or albums I've simply seen a lot and am interested in. I find RYM to be useful for this as they bold something like the top 2000-10,000 releases in the RYM overall, so it can serve as a good guideline as to what by an artist is essential. My listening also very often follows a theme - during the BYT it was stuff from the year charts of whoever was playing a certain year, recently it has been Blue Note in preparation for the BLT (if that ever happens), in 2014 it was... well, largely 2014 albums.

I also tend to aim for a certain amount of new music i.e. 3-4 hours at any one time but I'm fairly sure that's just me.

[Skinny]

I use plenty of sources for recommendations (mp3 blogs, music sites, record shop mailing lists, BEA charts, RYM charts, magazines, word of mouth), which results in an ever-expanding mental list of albums (often broken down into smaller - though no less random - lists that I keep in strangely-titled Notepad files which litter my desktop) that I want to listen to at some point, and I generally just pick something from there that I feel I might be vaguely in the mood for at that particular moment in time. If after a few songs I'm really not enjoying the album (which doesn't happen too often, largely because I seem to have a fairly good instinct for what I might find interesting, and what I'm in the mood for listening to), I either decide to return to it at another time when I'm in a different mindset, or decide that it's not for me and forget about it. I don't really have any tips, in that sense, besides just doing what you want to do. Find some sites that cater to your tastes, check them on a semi-regular basis, and don't waste time with records that aren't offering anything that interests you at that particular moment in time.
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2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.

[SuedeSwede]

I use RYM mostly. Sometimes get some recs from word of mouth, BEA charts, etc. But I rely greatly on RYM's overall and friends charts (the latter being an "as rated by my friends" option which is helpful because I usually add people who have similar or interesting tastes). I've found using RYM is better to filter out what I want to listen to and I can usually get a good grasp of what an album will be like from the people who rate it (and there's helpful genre tags and all). So yeah, not a very wide variety of sources but it gives me more than enough to listen to. I too have so many Notepad files knocking about of things I need to listen to
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[RoundTheBend]

Much appreciated! Community thought is not to be discounted, especially when the responses are unique and intelligent.