Discovering Music

Recommendations
There are a variety of sources available in regards to discovering new music.

The various sources for discovering music include:
 * /mu/
 * last.fm
 * Rate Your Music
 * Discogs
 * Review Websites and Blogs
 * Record Labels
 * Essential Charts

/mu/
The first and most obvious source is 4chan's /mu/. By observing discussion on artists or genres, you could probably pick up some new music just based on what people have to say. You could also ask for recommendations, but avoid making a thread based solely on recommendations for yourself. You could use tools such as the top 50, top 100 or collage chart makers, or the 3x3 generator to make a thread with (or to post in a pre-existing 3x3 or chart thread), asking people to post their 3x3s or charts and ask for recommendations through that.

The best way of receiving recommendations on /mu/ is by making conversation with people in threads and then just asking what they would recommend. Most people will be willing to drop you a few artists or albums to look up. Do not ask for links to the recommended album though, or any album posted on /mu/. Since megaupload went down and mediafire has gone on a banning spree, a lot of people have been finding it more difficult to illegally obtain music, so now on /mu/, everytime someone mentions an album, they are usually followed by someone begging for a link. Downloading music is an issue that people should make the effort to do on their own and this issue is covered in the Obtaining Music section of this wiki.

last.fm
Last.fm is a service offered that tracks what you play through your media player (scrobbling) and records it to your profile. This is then used to determine recommendations for you based on your most played. Last.fm actually does a decent job of making recommendations by seeing what you've listened to the most and then comparing that to other users with similar top artists, then making recommendations based on what artists the other users have listened to that you haven't.

Last.fm also features something called a shoutbox, which allows you to leave 'shouts' (comments) on other people's profiles. You can use this to discuss music on a more personal level with friends that you meet (in real life or on the internet), ask for recommendations or just make general small talk.

The final major feature of last.fm is the radio. The radio allows you to listen to music based around any classification you see fit, be it a genre, artist, album, song or another last.fm user, though it is currently a service that has to be paid for via a subscription in most countries, with only a 50-song free trial being available in most countries. The subscription also gives other various benefits, such as the ability to see who visits your profile.

Rate Your Music
Rate Your Music (RYM) is a website that provides you with a catalog of (probably) any artist and his subsequent discography that you could think of. The quality of the information provided on RYM is of a higher quality than the catalog of music provided on last.fm. This is because a lot of people on last.fm scrobble their music with incorrect tags, resulting in multiple variants of the same album by an artist and multiple variants of song titles. RYM requires a vote by members of RYM when information is added, resulting in a controlled quality of information.

RYM also provides members with the ability to rate their music on a five star scale. This allows you to receive recommendations based on what albums you have rated highly and comparing it to other users who share similar ratings and then recommending you music which you haven't rated at all and that said other users have rated highly. This results in recommendations not just being based on what you've listened to, like last.fm, but what you have rated the highest. The downside of this, compared to last.fm, is that you will probably end up being recommended music that you have already listened to, but haven't rated, unless you manage to rate your entire library of music. This can be overlooked though, since you can remove recommendations from your recommendation list anyway.

RYM also has the ability to create charts based on the overall ratings of every member on RYM. This service can be used without an RYM account and you can use it to find the overall highest ranked album of any genre you wish to explore.

Discogs
Discogs is a website thats purely for cataloging music, and can be used if you want to find some information on music in regards to tagging the music correctly. Discogs also provides a catalog of all reissues of albums (as does RYM), which can be useful, since different reissues might have different tracklists. Other than that, Discogs isn't really a great way of finding recommendations, just a good overall source of information regarding music.

Review Websites and Blogs
Review websites are one of the biggest causes of shitstorms on /mu/, especially when Pitchfork is the matter at hand. Review websites (and also blogs) should be seen as a source of new music and used to keep up to date in the music scene. You should listen to music before passing judgement on it and not feel afraid to either deviate from a reviewer's opinion, or to enjoy it when everyone else is telling you that you only like it because it's highly rated on Pitchfork. Here's a list of review websites and blogs that you may wish to visit.

Review Wesbites

 * allmusic
 * BBC Music
 * Dusted
 * Piero Scaruffi's knowledge base
 * Pitchfork
 * The Quietus
 * Sputnikmusic
 * Tiny Mix Tapes
 * The Wire

Blogs

 * Anti-Gravity Bunny
 * guide me little tape
 * Stonerobixxx
 * Tome to the Weather Machine

Record Labels
Record labels are an option that a lot of people seem to forget about. By looking at what record label an artist is/was signed up to, you can find new artists that are/were also signed up. A lot of smaller record labels tend to specialise in smaller genres of music, and they seem to try and hold a particular quality amongst the musicians they sign. It's not recommeded looking up the record label of larger artists, since a lot of them will just be signed to more major record labels, who dont take up artists based on style, but based on what will bring them the most money.