Let’s be blunt – most people, once they hit about 35, stop looking for new artists to listen to.  By the time they hit 40, they’re locked into the stuff they listened to in their teen years and rarely venture beyond.  Then they go online and complain about how today’s music sucks compared to the music they grew up with.

But “popular” music (music that sold a lot of records/tapes/CDs/streams) has always borrowed heavily from the past, and you can draw a direct line from Jimi Hendrix to Stevie Ray Vaughn to John Mayer (to use an obvious example). I recently read an online post where a college aged kid was making the argument that the 90s was the best ever decade for music.  There were some great bands in the 90s, sure, but there’s no “best ever decade.”  To some, Frank Sinatra was the best singer ever.

If you’re not open to hearing new artists, if you’re locked in the past, that’s your decision.  But you can’t make an argument about how “bad” music is today if you don’t know any music from today except for the Top 40.

In a way, it’s easier than ever to find new music you’ve never heard before.  Internet research isn’t hard… Google “bands influenced by Black Sabbath” or “today’s best prog rock bands” and you’re off and running.  Or you can look at recommendations on Apple Music based on what you’re already listening to.  Or find any number of cool blogs or websites in your genre of choice.  There are more acts out there than ever before and they’re all on Spotify/Apple Music.

Here’s an interesting experiment.  If you go to the YouTube channel for Amoeba Music, they do interviews with tons and tons of new and older artists where the artists talk about the music they recently bought.  Here’s a link, sorted by popularity – see how many of the artists on this page that you know.  Unless you’re really wired in, you likely don’t know most of them.  It’s a glimpse of what’s out there:

https://www.youtube.com/c/amoeba/videos?view=0&sort=p&flow=grid

It takes some digging, but there’s a lot of interesting music happening now, as well as good music from the 60s to the 2000s that you likely missed.  On Apple Music and Spotify, you can pull up David Bowie and see a list of other artists similar to him.  There are many tricks.

There’s no one radio station to listen to.  It requires a lot more work.  But the rewards can be massive.