Finding Diamonds in the Underground

*listening to Áine Cahill - Blood Diamonds*

Fans of music, and I mean "music" in the most literal sense (liking a wide variety of genres of music and can maintain a conversation about its design and aesthetics), are probably not the ones who flaunt their deep knowledge of Taylor Swift's library of songs, or attempt to emulate the vocal capabilities of Mariah Carey, or travel to the city to see Kendrick Lamar in concert. Fans of music, those who seem to enjoy searching for and finding new music, will want to discuss the current trends in music, or the multiple sub-genres of pop music, or bob their heads to a song from an online indie music radio station or stream.

It's Underground Music: the music that exists below "popular" music. Maybe out of sight, but not out of mind for those who "dig".

It is below the common person's stream of consciousness where independent artists live and (aim to) thrive, where fans of electronic beats, trance, indie pop, indie rock, dream pop, or - yes - even vaporwave - exist. Their songs are the songs you don't hear on radio stations. I mean, maybe if you're lucky, someone from this world breaks through, but think about it: we're expanding our knowledge and *vision* of music at a rate not seen in a long time. This begs the question: why does the stereotypical Top 40 music sound and feel so stale? Maybe that's a blog entry for another day, but really what I'm trying to get at is the underground music industry is a great source for finding music you actually like.

There are several channels for finding music like this in today's internet. The most obvious one is the Spotify app. I first used Spotify while in college and was immediately won over by its expansive library of music. At that time, it was difficult to find any platform (other than YouTube) that could give you that level of access. It was only a year or two departed from the death of Limewire and Yahoo! Launchcast (remember that?) so we were primed for a new free(*) source for music. Spotify has improved its interface and library size, and it now provides custom-tailored playlists that give you music from a favorite genre, or "mood" music, or "new releases" music - which is where I find lots of music that otherwise gets overlooked.

But given that we are the "50 States of Song," how about finding music from a particular U.S. state? One of the contest's goals is to bring Underground Music to the forefront; to give it a platform. There are a few options. One I recommend is ReverbNation, which supports independent, up-and-coming artists and songwriters from all over the world to upload their music in the hopes of gaining an audience. It is reliant on the artist/band to have created a profile and page for their music to be streamed, so it doesn't have everyone. But it supports sharing information about future concerts, tours, and music videos. Most importantly, you can filter artists by location. Several of the songs you have seen in the contest thus far have been found through this site. To a lesser (or greater) extent, Bandcamp and CDBaby provide copious amounts of music for the eager beaver who wants to find as much of genre XYZ as they can consume. Indie rock, metal, rap, and electronic music flourish here (although there tends to be a more Christian trend on CDBaby).

There are other websites out there that share music by its location, and focus on the developments and artists from that area. Unfortunately, these types of sites are hard to come by, and there is no guarantee that something exists for your state, city, or country. About four years ago Paste Magazine did a long-running series about "artists you should know" from each of the 50 states. From experience, I can also recommend some websites for countries like Iceland and Canada, or cities like Minneapolis or Chicago. Beyond this, though, my current experience fails me. If you are interested in finding a website that focuses on local music developments in your area, I recommend checking ReverbNation, but you can also search for something like "seattle new music releases 2017" in Google and see what comes up.

Each year I find new resources and websites for finding new music, and I'm eager to jump back into Spotify this season. But I'm curious: where do you look to find your favorite kinds of music? Which websites do you frequent for musical inspiration? How would you go about finding music in your area? Comment below and let's discuss!

Three cheers to the Underground world, and see you in the next blog!

-GL