Suggested Reading

These books are great resources!

Friends suggestions

Ask your friends who know your taste to suggest some music to listen to.

Local clubs

Get familiar with the small local venues around your area. Some places are all ages, so if you are under 18 don't worry.

Music blogs

Music blogs are neat because they are written by every day folks and not music critics who are paid to feel a certain way. Our music blog is Fiberglass Jacket. Feel free to let me know about more and I'd be happy to link them here.

Music discussion forums

Discussion forums are a great way to get music suggestions. If you haven't yet, check out our pop culture forum!

Learn the history of music

A great way to discover new music is to learn the history of music. Educating yourself on the music you already like and where it came from will expose you to new artists and genres that you have never heard of. Get familiar with the timeline of music and how it developed.

Musicians favorite musicians

Research what bands your favorite bands like. When I discovered The Ramones and fell in love with Joey Ramone I wanted to know what his favorite bands were. This was how I discovered The Stooges, The Who, The New York Dolls, and many other bands that became my favorites too. It's not necissarily what artist's music inspired them, just the ones they themselves were fans of.

Pandora

Pandora internet radio is probably the best day this day and age to discover new music. Pandora is powered by the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken, the Music Genome Project: a project started over ten years ago to capture the complex musical DNA of songs using a large team of highly-trained musicians.

Check out my Pandora profile

Spotify

Spotify lets you create play lists from songs you like, which is a neat advantage over Pandora. Like Pandora, Spotify connects you with music stations with other bands that you might like. You can also search for albums or an artists whole discography and listen to it on Spotify which is a feature Pandora doesn't have. Grooveshark is also pretty awesome!

Zune & iTunes

As far and buying and downloading music goes, Zune and iTunes are the way to go. Zune is great because you just pay around $10 a month to play all the music you want and put it on your Zune device. You can buy or borrow the tracks as long as you have a Zune pass (but if you purchase them, they are yours). iTunes is great to find and download music. You can buy and download a track or an entire album.

Magazines

Believe it or not there are still some awesome music mags out there. No, I'm not talking about Rolling Stone, but that one isn't bad. In my opinion the best music magazine in the world is MOJO It has great high quality pictures, well written interesting articles about everybody you want to read about in the rock world. They also encorporate new bands who are rock and folk, acid rock. They also come with a CD packed with surprisingly awesome tunes. You will not be disappointed! I have found that UK based rock mags tend to be the best ones. There are a lot of great indie mags too!
Other great ones: Classic Rock Magazine, UNCUT Other good ones: Spin, Rolling Stone

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