How do you discover new (non-chart) music to buy?

[franch]

I used to listen to Jazz FM - esp Boudoir Beats - till it turned into Smooth. Then I discovered the amazing online Pandora - till they discovered I was listening in the UK, which is apparently illegal.

Are there any alternatives? I'm not after anything especially obscure - and am interested in discovering music that's old but new to me, as much as brand new stuff.

get a magazine like uncut (mojo to a lesser extent), has loads of articles and reviews (though i largely ignore the star system) john peel used to be v good for this sort of thing, but alas...

Hmm, wonder if I can get into the habit of reading about music. It's so personal, I'm always suspicious of reviews - I really need to hear the stuff - in that lazy, passive, effortless way that radio allows!

What's happened to radio? There is no equivalent to John Peel out there any more, is there? Or the good-quality old Jazz FM programmes?

what are you listenig to just now? my current play list is: nick drake, nina simone, two gallants, mark mulcahy, chaeley mingus, papa M, miles davies, low and neil young.
try this site rateyourmusic.com/

A lot of the music magazines - Uncut, Mojo and Word for example - include a CD each month. Mojo does a lot of collections of "influences" and also tribute collections, which I think are quite fun but Uncut and Word probably do better CDs for tracks from albums being released now.

I often go onto Youtube & just pick random tracks/artists from whatever genre I fancy listening to at the time.

We overlap on nina simone, twoboots! I'm going to check out some of your others.

Also listen to (I know some of this is chart but I get so sick of listening to chart stations and as I said, am finding it hard to come across non-chart stuff): Amy Winehouse, Beatles, James Morrison, Stevie Wonder, Gil Scott Heron, Carmen (the opera) ...

Just looked at rateyourmusic - lots of foreign-language reviews - ?!! Ok tho so if I'm interested in James Hunter (reviewed on the homepage - in English!), how do I listen to some? Do I have to look him up on iTunes or is there a way of clicking thru to his tracks? (Actually I just found him on iTunes and it's quite nice - tho a teeny bit 'fake retro' for me)

DH suggested looking up some of my faves on e.g. Amazon and looking at the 'also bought' bits ... Again, something I'm just never going to find the time to do - and anyway their suggestions always tend towards the mainstream (which I'm not at all snooty about, but just feel there has to be more out there ...)

Don't the music mags tend to focus on a particular type of music? I don't know what kind I like really - I just need to hear stuff and react to it

Oh dear I do think I need something effortless

Mark Mulcahy's good, twoboots

itunes isn't a great way to get an idea of an album - or even a track - is it - before you invest your dosh

elkie's right about the magazines uncut and the word are quiet broadspec and their free cds can hold some gems. some of my favoutite artists/tracks have come out of movie soundtracks. discovered al green via pulp fiction; mulatu ashtake (excellent ethiopian jazz) via broken flowers, the o brother where art thou soundtrack is generally great (and i'm no fan of country) i could go on and on

franch I like you're DH's thinking but sometimes Amazon's also bought suggestions are a little 'out there' in relation to the product you have bought.

You may of course discover a hidden gem that you would never have come across otherwise.

Ooh, you need last fm. It's like pandora. Put in ehat you like and away you go. Just google it, no subscription and legal in uk afaik.

Have visited last fm before - will give it another go. I think you're right yellow, it's the closest to what I'm looking for.

Will also check out the mags altho magazines do just gather dust in this house!

i read nromal papers and keep an eye ont eh radio one and tow playlists online

i put em on the codly blog

ca.youtube.com/watch?v=AUtGnwn6iFo&feature=related

on youtube the main record cos haev channels liek that one
island do for eg

where they post vids of new bands months before they get into the charts

MTV etc and youtube

DH says: BBC 6 is good, also Last FM and the Music Genome project. Online reviews - pitchfork, all music guide, metacritic. Also ask other people. And know someone Dutch with a very extensive CD collection.

observer music monthly

six music, if you have digital. Or Q magazine reviews are good.

there's a site called (I think ) Pandora. It asks you to put in what you like already and then suggests things you might like. You have to pretend you're in the USA though (by putting a US zip code) to register.

friends (with large music collections!)

the music section of a certain online parenting forum is also very good for recommending new interesting/alternative music

here

lol - you mentioned pandora already - silly me!

Not Jazz but I swear by Tom Dunne's Pet Sounds, Irish radio but I get it now online. If you like Damien Rice, Josh Ritter, Frames type things with great songs from more mainstream artists that are buried in albums you might never listen to and good live stuff then Tom's yer man.