One of the most common questions in the music industry today is the question of where to find the best talent and how. If you are a blogger, manager, talent finder, curator, artist, fan, etc. you have probably wondered where to find the best new talent and music for your venture. Obviously, the quick fix would be visiting risingmusictalent.com once a day but we all know that we are very specific with what we post on here. Everyone has different tastes and preferences and depending on what the focus is talent could be anywhere. For being involved in the industry for more than 5 years I still find new ways to curate the best music and artists everyday. There are endless amounts of opportunities to discover the next big artist, the next big genre, or the next big thing. Today I am going to fill you in on some of the best practices I have come across in my time being in the industry. One of my hobbies is finding the best new music out there, and as a result I am constantly searching for new ways to find it.
Soundcloud, period. I am a huge, huge, huge fan of Soundcloud and that is where I spend the majority of my time and the results are there. Every new kid starting out needs somewhere to put their music, and soundcloud is very easy to navigate so it is the first pick for many. Now that the industry is flooded with producers and musicians, there are many very talented artists out there that haven’t got their praise yet. For you talent managers, labels and curators this is probably going to be the best advice I have and I understand you don’t have much time to spare so I’m going to fill you guys in first. The best and most useful way to find these underground, unexposed artists is through the depths of Soundcloud. Everyone sees the tracks that get reposted by the people you follow or the likes on your friends page. This is not the way to find new talent. It is going to require some of your skill that you have learned being in the industry. First, you need to go to one of the artists that you have heard of trying to make it big but has somewhere below 5k followers on their account. If you are digging their style and their music you know it’s a good place to start. Next, search through their likes. This takes time, I know, but I am telling you this is the best way to do it. I let their likes play for hours sometimes until I hear something new, something different, something that intrigues me. Once you find that artist, go to their profile and repeat the process. Go through their likes or reposts until you stumble on something incredible that probably no one has heard. I have come across artists with less than 80 likes on their page but their music is absolutely incredible. I understand this is time consuming, but that is what curating music is all about.
The next best way to find new music is becoming apart of groups that specifically share music with each other. I am apart of 10+ Facebook groups that are strictly for sharing music; you would be surprised with what you come across. The best way to go about this is finding people who have similar music interests as you or people who you know have good taste in music. Ask if they’re apart of groups or if they want to start a group with you. It seems very simple but I have found this to be one of the most useful ways of finding new talent.
Another way, that I just discovered in the past year, that proves to be very useful is following big time bloggers and curators on their social networks. Maybe you guys do this already, I don’t know how it didn’t come across my mind earlier but it has proven to be one of the best ways to curate new music. I don’t mean just following what they post to get blog traffic or more followers on Soundcloud. Find out who they really are by going to their business page, label page, blog page and following their personal social media channels. They will be less inclined to post things solely for traffic and more inclined to post music they actually appreciate. I was following this one twitter account and after about 6 months the guy became a curator for the Monstercat label. If you are looking to become a curator, this isn’t a bad idea to do on your personal channels either. If you get big enough and known for your music choices you might end up getting offered to do your hobby full time!
I know we have talked about HypeM before but it is one of the best tools on the Internet. We focused on the popular page before, but go ahead and take a look at the recently posted to see what you come across. You can specialize your searches by utilizing the filter, I usually hit posted today and see what I come across. Trust your instincts, if you come across an artist or a genre you think is going to explode – share it with your friends and see what they think. This is where the groups for specifically sharing music come in handy.
A lot of these strategies to curating might seem obvious, but I know I would have appreciated someone filling me in from the beginning. This is what I have learned over the past 5 years in the industry and have continued to use today. If you guys have any other suggestions on the best ways to find music feel free to shoot me an email or reply in the comments! Being open to all suggestions is the first step at becoming a great curator, you never know what awesome music you’ll come across!
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