How open are you to finding new music?

[ghost 2687]

There's a lot of music out there, but it seems like every release has at least a small following of supporters that vouch for how great it is. I've had my fair share of underwhelming discoveries that I'll abandon on the first listen, but sometimes a release will compel me to spend time with it and learn to appreciate something new.

 

How open are you guys to finding new music? Are you the type to make a final decision based on an initial listen, or do you like to listen to something a few times before making a decision? Do you ever revisit music you initially disliked to see how your opinion on it as changed?

 

I used to be very black and white about what I enjoyed listening to. If it wasn't from a certain band or genre, I would be very close minded to accepting it. For a while I exclusively listened to Jrock and mostly Dir en grey, Mucc and GazettE. Anything else wasn't appealing to me.

 

In recent years, I've grown to love the challenge of understanding music I would typically not listen too. As a result, I feel like my tastes have expanded tremendously. The release that transformed me was "Cast the first stone" by Ion Dissonance. I had never heard of this band before but a lot of people were really hyped for a new album they were releasing. When it came out I listened to it but couldn't digest it. Their music lived up to their name featuring lots of grindy, mathrock chaos that was just abrasive and depressing. 

 

But, it felt like I just didn't get it so I kept listening to it. And, eventually it clicked wiith me; the chaotic bar changes, harsh vocals, and dissonant chords all came together into some kind of nirvana-like experience. It was like a gateway album that opened my ears to other genres like black metal, funeral rock, and other avante garde or experimental music that I used to shun. I may not visit this album very much these days, but I'm grateful to have pushed myself into learning from it because I'm so open to all kinds of music now.

Edited March 2, 2018 by ghost

[karai · ebi 505]

I'll try anything once, but I know exactly what kind of sounds I like, so if I don't enjoy at least 1 minute of a song then it doesn't pass for me. I never paid a whole lot of attention to genres, but I think I listen to everything except for modern country or radio pop.

Quote

A song can be authentic and full of energy and performed with character, but if I think that the songwriting sucks, I just won't be able to stick to it, no matter how many times I listen to it.

Also from below, big agreement to that.

Edited March 2, 2018 by karai · ebi

[Kira_Uchiha 92]

It's a really interesting topic. Nearly a decade back, I was a little weeb and was all "JAPANESE MEWSIC MASTER RACE" and I refused to like any music outside of Asian countries. A few years later I started to really open up and give a fair listen to European and American bands that weren't Linkin Park (because I've always liked them, they were my introduction to rock and metal), and now most of my music consists more of Western bands than Eastern ones. When I got into Western bands, the first band that really took me time to get into was Periphery. I really thought that a lot of their music was just a mess, and listened only to songs with simple structure like Erised and Priestess. I didn't get odd time signatures and poly-rhythms. But after a while, it actually clicked with me, and Periphery is one of my absolute favorite bands, and Periphery II:  This Time It's Personal and their Juggernaut albums are albums that I consider to be masterpieces. Another band that took me time to get into was the godfather of Djent, Meshuggah. I still have a hard time sometimes to get into them, but I'm appreciating their music more and more. 

 

Apart from bands like these, I also discovered that what I look for the most when I listen to songs is good songwriting. A song can be authentic and full of energy and performed with character, but if I think that the songwriting sucks, I just won't be able to stick to it, no matter how many times I listen to it. That's why I'm not much into popular music, into much of visual kei, into much of metalcore and deathcore(even death/black metal for that matter): 80% of the songwriting in this genre is either bland and generic as fuck, or just plain bad, and that's coming from someone who's favorite genre is metalcore (and prog metal). Of course it's not just songwriting that I look at, but that's the most important factor for me.

[Bear 1817]

It depends on a lot of different things. It depends on the band, the genre and my first impression. I'm also more of a full album/EP person, so I play entire records from A to Z. But for most part I give every single new album I listen to at least 5 spins. Don't really have time to give each album 20-30 spins anymore, however I did in my youth when I had more spare time and got a hold of less albums. Now everything is available online and I simply don't have enough time to give all the albums the time they really deserve. Which is a shame, but that's life in 2018.

But some of my favourite bands/artists (Sigh, Kagrra, Blood Freak, Goblin, Devil Doll, Gost, Carpenter Brut, Bathory, Summoning, Misfits, Paysage d'Hiver, Lifelover, Fall of Efrafa and more) are all bands I had to work hard to get into. None of these were artists I appreciated at first even though I found several of them to have a really interesting sound, and I had to spin one/several of their albums a lot (like 20+ times) before I started appreciating the music. Blood Freak and Lifelover I even despised at first and for years I thought they were absolutely shit. Would be close to vomiting whenever I heard a single tune of either bands. But one day they both kinda stuck and my opinion had changed. Huge fan nowadays.

 

 

 

Same with TV-series. I don't give up on a TV-series after 1, 3 or 5 episodes. I'll give the TV-series an entire season to grow on me. Might not end up liking it, but something like Black Flag turned out to grow into one of my favourites TV-series from season 2 and onward. But I was not impressed with the first season. Glad I did continue though.

[nekkichi 6043]

I only give second chances to my favs whose experimental releases don't click with me immediately

 

i.e., the vocal harmonies that legendary chanteuse Mylene Farmer thrown on her latest single as a part of reinventing her sound put me off during first listen a little bit:

but I kept it on repeat on suddenly it hit me #buy_on_itunes #stan_talent

[jaymee 405]

For singles, I might give it a partial (just not my thing at all) or full listen (sounds okay, curious where it's gonna go), and if I'm not feeling it after that I generally pass. Exception is for favorite artists, especially if I'm going to a live where it's likely to be played. I'm more likely to listen to songs I don't appreciate the first time around if they're on a CD with other songs I'm fond of. Sometimes a song works better for me when I can conceptualize it as being part of a bigger work, but then sometimes I really just don't like a song and skip over it.

There are genres that don't usually catch my attention, but I'll try anything regardless the genre or language. There's always going to be at least one artist doing something interesting, no matter what the genre.

 

Sometimes if I go back to a song or album I didn't like, years later, it might suddenly click. I don't know if that's a reflection of maturing tastes or just being at a different point in life and able to relate to it more.

Edited May 23, 2018 by jaymee

[togz 2004]

I've gone through different phases of musical interests. Before I discovered Visual Kei, I really listened to whatever I thought sounded good, but outside of 80's classic rock and pop I didn't really care for artist names and checking out full albums. However, Once I discovered visual kei it was a whole new realm and I spent nearly 5-6 years listening solely to that alone. I wouldn't even give anything outside of the subculture a second thought. Looking back now, I felt it was very immature and restricted on my part. As I got older I started to listen to other types of Japanese music and strayed away from visual kei. I still listened to bands here and there but I really feel that was the peak of my musical diverse interest. At that point I would give things a good listen through, even to the point of trying a few different albums by an artist to be sure I wasn't missing out on something great. Then I went through the metal/alternative phase where I listened exclusively to that both Japanese and English bands. 

 

All of that leading to now.... I have a lot of responsibilities and other things I'm going after in life so it's hard to really sit down and listen actively to new things everyday. I really have to be in the right mood and I'm more picky now because of my time restrictions. If I am in the mood to really find something new, I'll even skim through albums and if i don't like the general idea of the first 3 ish songs I'll move to the next artist. That doesn't mean I won't revisit. This is the most common thing for my musical discoveries. I'll listen to something briefly, decide I'm not digging it, forget about it and come across it again later with a different mindset. I don't believe that any music is bad, that's why even the smallest groups have a little following. I think it's all about timing and your mindset when listening to something new. Had I not discovered Visual Kei, I may not even be in to Japanese music for all I know and I may have a different process completely when discovering new artists. Sometimes I search for things and sometimes i hear things by chance of being in the right place at the right time and it so happens to catch my interest. 

[Yuri 30]

For more than 10 years I was always around metal/rock/punk genre. Of course I started from commercial bands (like everybody I think), slowly finding which subgenres are the best for me. I used to jump on electro (electro house, DnB mostly) and pop rhythms from time to time, but that was for not more than 1 month. When I meet friends who were into Japanese music, my journey with VK, j-rock was easier than I think most of the people.  Since then I have never came back to every other music than Asian.

I remember I used to follow pretty nice blog about Asian metal and rock scene, which helped me a lot with finding some great bands. I have never used Youtube to look for new bands, maybe because its' proposals were always bad. I was listening to my friends' suggestions as well with music... and there I should specify which friends I was listening to. Not everybody's taste was appealing to me and I was pretty sceptic about "their" bands. But I was taking all samples which were about melodic death/power/speed/trash/gothic/symphonic metal and post-hardcore. AND IT HAD TO BE ASIAN. If not, most of the time I didn't like it. For some reason when I was looking for something cool I couldn't find anything. When this nice blog disappeared I was pretty much lost about any new bands. But that time I was hyped about Vocaloids, so I was listening to almost every genre.

After and during "Vocaloids wave" I was following pretty much Doujin music. Most of the metal bands in 2010-2014 I liked very much, right now I feel like that scene is dead a bit. I haven't tried anything but metal and rock. Still don't know why.

In last years I started to find new bands on my own, mostly because I have more free time. My music taste didn't change a lot, only expanded with progressive metal. And I'm more open to raw punk. I became to be more open to nonAsian music but not like I'm the biggest fan of BMTH, holy no! But I'm not off-putted when somebody listens to them at least.

[frayed 404]

I used to be really stubborn about getting into new music. Being with my girlfriend broadened my perspective a lot, so I’m way better than I used to be.

 

Some bands/songs appeal to me right away. Some take me hearing the right song. Sometimes it about hearing the right song in the right context, or hearing the song enough times to be able to find something I like in it. Some bands I can only enjoy live, and then when I go home and try to listen to the CD they do nothing for me. Some bands put together a kickass CD and then I go to the live and wow I think they’re awful in person.

 

It’s the vocalist I usually get the most hung up on. It can be an objectively good voice, but if they don’t do it for me it’s really hard to give the music a fair chance.

[LIDL 692]

I enjoy discovering new artists, new genres.

Sometimes I'd listen to it many times, til I get used to it. If I cannot get into it, then I will drop it for awhile.

Sometimes, some music just needed the right mood and timing to be enjoyed.

 

For example, I am a fan of Marilyn Manson. And when he released Golden Age of Grotesque, I cannot get into it easily cos it is so different with what the band has done in the past. It frustrates me. And I leave it alone until 3 years later, suddenly I wanna hear it and so I did. During this time, the album speak to me. It was a great experience. I had this same thing with some of other albums too, MIA's MAYA for example, and more. Now I come to appreciate those albums much more.

 

But sometimes, things just really not for me. Even after awhile and I tried to listen to it/them again. And I felt I have given a fair chance, and just didn't work. So I usually will drop it altogether.

 

 

[ahnchc 309]

I'm always trying to find new music to listen to and expanding my taste in music. I enjoy when artists have a sort of acquired taste and challenge my music preference. A good example of this is BUCK-TICK's music. They have a very unique and interesting sound that took me a while to get into, but now I consider myself a fan and enjoy most of their music.

 

I typically listen to a new song that I'm iffy on multiple times unless it's dreadful enough (imo) that I just cannot get used to it. 

[indigo 389]

I'm the type of person who's always searching for new music. My music taste is all over the place but 95% of the time I spend scavenging for music I have a clear idea of what kinda sounds I'm looking for. 

 

Back when I was younger it took some time to get into bands that I consider some of my favorites as of now. Even then I was aware of this fact and  I often kept revisiting bands/artists, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not and eventually it paid off. Not it every single case, of course, but many times. (One example of this: a band I used to dislike, or maybe not dislike but felt lukewarm about is The Novembers. It should be noted it was before their zeitgeist album. But now I pretty much love all their material, even the older stuff and I can admit I'm a stan.)

 

I think that with age I have developed a pretty good sense / ear for finding music that I enjoy. It doesn't take as much time for me to get into artists as it used to. One reason for that is probably my ever-growing musical spectrum / knowledge of music. So these days I don't revisit as often as I used to, if I don't get it on the first listen, I probably won't come back to it later.

 

Something I recently noticed though is that I have some bands/artists that I only listen to in youtube, like guilty pleasures but without the guilty part. Artists that I never got into so much that I had to get their album instantly, the kind of artists that I just keep coming back to every now and then and listen to their music on youtube and that is enough for me... until at some point I start thinking about buying their album. Haha.

 

Usually these are the points I pay attention to in new music:

- The sound is what gets me interested,

- The execution makes me stay,

- The emotion/feel decides if I love it.

Edited March 23, 2018 by indigo

[Sana 4]

I always enjoy checking out new stuff but a lot of the time I'll have to listen back at least 3-4 times to decide whether it's something I truly like, with a 9-5 job and other commitments this can be pretty time consuming and I find myself only keeping songs and artists that stand out, songs that have one or two good or interesting parts just aren't a big enough reason for me to keep it in my library. The most recent example of this I can offer is the song 'Rotten Orange' by the band 'Acme' although it's got a catchy chorus the song itself doesn't feel like anything new and imo I could listen to 20+ songs that offer a catchy chorus and more.

 

Emotions at the time of listening are important to me as well, I remember hearing Gaia by Janne Da Arc the first time and skipping it after about 2 minutes, purely because I was in a bad mood and it felt boring, a couple years later and the whole album has become one of my favourites, there's Amazarashi as well that after hearing a few songs always put the fear in my head that "if I hear this, I'll feel sad" but I found myself embracing it and the music now can offer me some nice reflection

 

 

[GreatNorthernVK 183]

I’ve been actively trying to get back into the VK scene, and i’m Trying to make my way through band discographies in order to rate them. This means catching up with a few bands that I slept on or dismissed entirely a decade ago.

 

I will admit that a lot of the newer VK that I’ve listened to doesn’t “click” as much as the older stuff. But I’m still a fan of the scene, and it’s been fun catching up with the places in the English fandom that are still active.