Where do you get your music news?

Oddments
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This question brought to you by me discovering Line of Best Fit this morning and wondering if it’s any good. Tell me what your favourite music blogs/writers/magazines are! Skip the rest of this to avoid my own incoherent, overlong ramblings.

By way of introduction, I’ve been making an effort recently to seek out music news from writers and publications whose tastes and interests I can get to know. There’s a classic issue with Pitchfork-style numbered reviews which aim to give an objective rating to an album: (at least in my experience) they don’t come with a strong sense of the reviewer’s tastes and feel a little contextless or impersonal. The Pitchforks of the world end up driving a lot of music discussion online, but I don’t find them very useful for discovering new music, or exploring the artists I like. (It’s probably not his fault and just a personal taste thing, but I feel similar about Anthony Fantano.) So I’ve been trying to curate a more fun, more interesting, personal list of music writing that I go to often.

I haven’t abandoned big name publications and I don’t follow a lot of individual writers/reviewers, but I try and pick out sources which have distinct personal opinions on music, or like to focus on particular aspects of it. Here are some I’ve enjoyed recently, in no particular order:

  • Music journalist Dan Ozzi has a great newsletter called Zero Cred mostly about punk and emo. His regular book recommendations column is particularly great. Enough to convert me into a paid subscriber.
  • Bandcamp Daily obviously varies really wildly in genre/focus, but because it always tends to cover smaller artists, keeping up with particular genres (esp. punk, jazz and hip hop) via their columns has been a fantastic way to discover new music. Plus I like how pleasant it is to read an article while listening along to the embedded tracks. (Please Songtradr don’t enshit Bandcamp to death.)
  • Stereogum has a nice range of coverage (a little bit of Big Music News, a little bit of weirdo indie up-and-comer stuff, and lots in the middle), but what I like best is that it’s easy to get to know the tastes of a particular writer or regular column. Even their reviews feel a little more personal and interesting than Pitchfork-style numbered reviews.
  • I like hardcore and so I love that Kerrang! has lots of in-depth hardcore coverage and a strong editorial opinion. I don’t always agree with their tastes, but I know where they stand.
  • See also Brooklyn Vegan whose new digital magazine is a real treat to receive in my inbox on the regular. Strong feeling of “I know what I’m here for”.
  • And the last place that comes to mind right now, Mathcore Index is tiny, very niche, and loads of fun. My greatest music wish is for a million more hyper-niche music blogs run by a couple of people in their spare time. My RSS feed hungers for it.

So. That’s a non-exhaustive list of some places I’ve been reading recently. Where do you get your music? Are there any particular writers or publications you’d recommend? As you may be able to tell, a lot of the music writing I follow is pretty narrowly focused genre-wise, so I’d love to diversify it a little. Plus, while I’ve sought out smaller, more niche blogs & writers, I’ve found nowhere near as many as I’d like. Hit me with your favourites!

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I check Brooklyn Vegan and Stereogum just about every day. They have quite a lot of overlap and similar music announcements, but the journalistic pieces from Stereogum make for some good reads and the comments section are nice for seeing thoughts from users.

I also use The Quietus on occasion. Their end-of-year list has a multitude of interesting albums that I don’t see on other sites. They also don’t provide ratings for albums, just write ups.

I also check rateyourmusic quite often to see what else people are enjoying throughout the year. They have some journalistic spotlights, but I mostly just read reviews and check the charts.

I used to check Invisible Oranges, the metal blog, here and there, but I’m not as into metal as I once was. Still a decent blog though.

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All over the place. I subscribe to emails for bands I like, I get a lot of music stuff in my Google news feed, I follow bands and get notifications on Twitter/X (pretty much the only reason I keep my account open there), I read reddit and some forums. Generally I have a process of osmosis from many different sources that works for me.

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Great post! This is something I have always grappled with as it gets harder and harder to trust/maintain interest in the bigger blogs. Pitchfork is definitely still good if you follow particular writers/series, but in general the music writing industry is all over the place and changes rapidly.

I still get a lot from FM Radio (Triple J), which is also a fading platform but still useful. They’re publicly funded, and under the same umbrella is Rage, a music video station (essentially old school MTV) that is still hands down the best way to keep on top of new Australian releases.

If you’re into more industry focused stuff, Todd Burns’ Music Journalism Insider is a really good email newsletter. It has a paid tier (that he is generous with) that I understand is great value for networking professionals.

The inevitable answer is social media, you’ve just got to tune your algorithms well.

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This is great. I’d never heard of tQ, but it looks really cool.

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Thanks for sharing your list! I love exploring new music through diverse sources too. I often check out Aquarium Drunkard for overlooked gems, Resident Advisor for electronic music insights, The Quietus for eclectic coverage, and Tiny Mix Tapes for their unique perspective. Hope you find these recommendations helpful!