www.andrewmackay.net:

It was only four or five years ago that I was happy to spend money on albums to find out if I’d like them. Of course, I was single and had extra time to waste then too. I found all kinds of new albums that I liked, and to some degree, I became a little more knowledgeable about music that I liked. Now that I’m a little older and have family commitments, work commitments, and other things that I’d like to accomplish, it’s become difficult to find new music that I like. I’ve got the stuff that I liked five years ago, but I can only think of one or two artists that I’ve gotten to know lately that I’ll listen to for the rest of my life. I don’t hear as much new because I don’t go out of my way to.

So, I’ve started trying to find ways to find music that I like.

Of course, there’s Pandora. But, Pandora mostly plays me stuff I already know. There’s Itunes’ genius (yes, I gave Apple all my music info… they already own the rest of my life between the Iphone I carry and the Macbook Pro I work on)… but the genius so far isn’t such a genius. It hasn’t shown me anyone that I was interested in acquiring.

So, I’ve started in on Ilike. The principle on Ilike is that you tell them who you like and they recommend others you might like. So far, I don’t think I’ve told them enough for them to craft very good suggestions, but I’m hopeful that it might become as useful to me as Netflix’s recommendations have become. I’ll keep you posted. Now, you tell me: 1. How do you find new music? and 2. Who’s your favorite musician that you’ve gotten to know in the last year?