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After writing yesterdays post, How do you discover new music? I came across a great article by our friend, Kevin English, from Eleetmusic about some of the tools he uses to find new music. I’ve included part of it below and encourage you to check out the rest at eleetmusic.com.

The days of walking into Wall Mart or Target on new release Tuesday are long gone for me. I used to enjoy standing in the isle of my favorite music store, looking at cover art and buying a fourteen dollar piece of plastic. Not anymore. I’ve realized that there is a more cost effective and environmentally friendly way to discover new music…and I’m not alone.

Everyone has their own methods of finding digital downloads. It’s a new day and if you are not aware of the possible processes of new music discovery, your CD’s are dead in the water. I figured that sharing my normal routine will shed some light on how you can position your work to be found. I encourage you all to try my method and contribute your own in the comments section.

Time
I set a certain amount of time each week to pour thru the massive amounts of new music on the internets. Generally Saturday mornings between 8:30 to 10:30 am works the best for me since my wife is still asleep, and I can close the kitchen door (where the wireless bose system is set up) and blast some interesting new tunes.

Step #1: Hypem.com
Then I point my browser to the behemoth blog aggregator, Hype Machine. I hit the Popular tab and press the play button to the right of the first song title that doesn’t contain the words Remix or Mashup.

If I like what I hear, I click the link to the original source, “Read full post >>”. This brings me too the magnificent blog that was smart enough to post the song in the format that Hypem’s API will recognize.
If I really like what I hear I’ll right click>save as the digital record to my hard drive. Lastly, I shoot the blog’s author a quick comment, bigging them up for putting me down, like so: “Great Record. Thanks for Sharing!”
Repeat over and over again. Hypem.com has enough of these posts to ruin a perfectly good Saturday.

Step #2: Fairtilizer.com
This site can kill your social life as well. I’ve yet to reach the end of their extensive catalog and it seems as if new artists are posting to the site every second.
I have a pro account here as you can see by the nifty branded player in the right section of my blog. They were nice enough to give me a customized widget including my logo and color scheme. Like it?
After logging in, I head straight to the Tracks tab. I further drill down by selecting Charts > Today. Depending on my mood I select the appropriate Genre and voila! The most diverse list of major and independent releases appears before my eyes.

Once I click play on the first selection I monitor my own head nods and toe taps for an emotional response. If all is well, I click the cross icon and add it to my Fairtilizer playlist. The player on my blog immediately syncs the new addition and showcases it proudly for the world to see.

Step # 3: We Are Hunted
When I’m really feeling brave, I head on over to this site…

P.S. If you’re a fellow artist, feel free to use this space to introduce everyone to your music. There’s nothing wrong with a little shameless self-promotion