Events
It’s true that we gave up on the radio a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean the radio has always sucked. It really amazes me that at some point bands like The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Rush (just to name a few) were all over the radio (some more than others obviously). The radio used to actually be a great way to find great new bands, or even continue hearing great bands. But who has come out in the past decade that comes even close to the aforementioned bands? I’m not sure I listen to any bands that have come out in the past two decades that the radio can claim any part in their success (maybe Tool). Well, we’ve probably all heard this before and reminds me of something someone said recently:
“You should never beat a dead horse, unless it’s a zombie horse, then you can’t beat it enough.”
- Steven Colbert
I’m under the impression this is a zombie horse… I think we’ve made it abundantly clear that we don’t use radio to find new music. Unfortunately, there are people that completely agree, but haven’t found other avenues to find music. In fact, that was me a little over a year ago. I hadn’t found a new band I really liked in years, and I was extremely close to giving up on the music industry. That was then though. I urge you to take a look at our reviews portal. Many of those bands I’ve heard before the site, but probably a lot fewer than you suspect. For example, my favorites page has 11 bands on there. I hadn’t heard 6 of those bands before the start of Obnoxious Listeners. Although I am rather proud of this site, this isn’t shameless self-promotion. My point is that you don’t need the radio to find great music. You just have to actually take a few minutes every now and then and find it yourself. The music is out there, but you can’t depend on it just finding you. Start searching on your own and you’ll realize:
“Maybe music isn’t dead. Maybe we all just forgot what it fucking sounds like.”
- Get Fighted, Alexisonfire
There’s not one band I’ve found, since the start of this site, that I found on the radio; and a large majority of them have never regularly been on the radio. One of the most frequently asked questions I get when I discuss music and this site is, “How do you find all of these bands?” I’d like to be a little more explicit about how I come across these bands… I have a subscription to regularly refill my internets. Seriously, all I do is peruse online music stores, myspace, and Pandora. Actually, I don’t use Pandora so much anymore because I tend to only need a few seconds to know if I want to listen any longer. Pandora only lets you skip so many songs within a certain amount of time. I pretty routinely use the “listeners also bought” and then follow up with a trip to myspace to get full length tracks. Are you into music? Pretty serious about it and need more music? Please, I urge you. Just go to an online music store and look through the “listeners also bought” for at least 10 minutes. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to find something new you’ll like.
I hope that this site will develop a large enough library of reviews to compete with the above process for our readers, but it’s just not there yet. My filtering process isn’t perfect, and frankly, it’s my filter. There is music you’ll love that I’ll hate, and I’ll skip over or not get the inspiration needed to write a review; which brings me to my final point. Here’s a little known secret. While I certainly spend a lot of time and energy trying to encourage others to get excited about music, I frankly don’t do this for you, the reader. I don’t mean to be arrogant or immodest in that regard. I just mean that you might be surprised how much you’d get out of putting yourself on a schedule to find new music and actually spend time writing about what you’ve found. Pretty quick, you’ll grasp out how much you truly like the band or artist you’re writing about. Either you’ll find you didn’t like them as much as you thought, or you’ll end up learning and hearing more than you would have otherwise. While I believe I enjoy writing much more than most (or maybe I just like reading my own opinion), but there is certainly value to it that I think anyone serious about music should try.
I’m certainly not trying to discourage people from using this site or others like it. I just want to convey that music critics don’t really know anything special or different from anyone else. There is a plethora of free utilities around the internet to find new music. Take some time to find new music, you’ll be surprised how easy it really is.
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