I’ve been building up a collection of physical music/spinning up a Navidrome server. My wife got me a gift card to a local record store for Valentine’s Day so I’ve got a few spare dollars. Do you have any music recommendations?
My top 3 artists for last year were Punch Brothers, The Strokes, and The Shins. I’m up for checking out anything though.
Not quite the same genres but I always recommend Man on the Moon II by Kid Cudi, Torches by Foster the People and Social Cues by Cage the Elephant whenever someone is asking for Album recs. I’ve listened to those albums countless times and I never get tired of them! Some other fun ones that don’t really get old are Heza by Generationals, Samurai by Lupe Fiasco, FIDLAR’s self titled album, and Hellmode by Jeff Rosenstock. Snagged a Sam Cooke vinyl for my dad for Christmas and thats been real nice hearing in the background recently. Are there any particular albums you’ve really been into in the past few years?
Thank you for the suggestions! I’ve got them written down and will be on the lookout when I get to the record store.
I’ve gotten away from intentionally listening to full albums for a while now. Streaming has made it really easy to just hit shuffle on the stuff I’ve liked and skip around until I find something I like. So I’ve experienced music much more in terms of singles I’ll listen to over and over again until I’m sick of them. Rinse and repeat.
These pickups have definitely been my trying to be more intentional and get back to listening to albums again. So far, I’ve enjoyed The Phosphorescent Blues by Punch Brothers, The Sayonara Wild Hearts OST, and Wincing
As a secondary question, how do you find new music in general? My last pickup was from having watched a video of Anthony Fantano talking about records he bought. It was Kimono My House by Sparks.
If you look up an album or artist on Last FM you can see similar albums and artist.
You can also follow specific tags on places like Bandcamp too.
I’m of the opinion that, in the age of streaming and immense accessibility to a vast pool of music, if you’re buying something physical then it should truly be a personal all time favorite album that you want to own forever and always, and have it exist in physical space with you. So personally, I would grab one of your favorite Punch Brothers, The Strokes or The Shins albums from the past few years that you have yet to own and continue building that tried and true pool of albums for your collection. I like purchasing and collecting physical media in a sort of “trophy shelf” sense; the things that coexist in my space should be a reflection of myself and my interests, an album I share my space with should be one that I am passionate about and know I will enjoy for the years to come. But that’s just me, if you like having physical media be an exploration of sound too; then do it up.
Regarding your follow-up question: I use a handful of tools to help me find new music. Note, I’m a very big electronic listener, so your mileage may very. While I myself do not actively use Spotify anymore, I do have 10ish years of data sitting there on the platform in which they still curate discover weekly playlists at no cost to me. I’ll usually take a flip through there once a week, save my favorites to keep feeding the bots and carry on saving my favorites to my other platforms that I use for digital & personal music management. During the work week, I’ll typically listen to a YouTube mix once or twice a day, which is about another 4 hours of fresh or themed curation (I prefer channels in which the person is present & spinning in hopes to reduce the amount of AI music & mixes that seems to have really infected the platform.) I also have Apple Music for my core digital streaming library + recommendations through there too. Beyond that, a little Bandcamp tag surfing; but I mostly use like cosine club or campseek as a sort of “if you like this, then you make like that” way of finding stuff. Lastly, some good ol’ Rate Your Music surfing too, which is great for me finding stuff outside of electronic. I think the platform has some biases towards the way in which users score or quantify what is good or not, so mileage varies there as well depending on how well your interests align with the overall sites “meta” so-to-speak. I think it’s healthy to have a variety of sources and perspectives to draw from.
For some personal recommendations:
Getting Killed by Geese
One of my favorites from 2025. The record store may be able to order it for you, the ones in my area typically help with that sort of stuff.
Tetra by C2C
Recently been respinning this one myself, it’s a rather fun one personally as someone who enjoys electronic quite a bit. Was massive in 2012, especially in the super group’s home country of France that was catching some air time on my local alternative stations. Hip-hop, mashup & turntableism vibes that for me, is a rather interesting experience.
Discovery by Daft Punk
All timer album, Interstella 5555 is a great way to enjoy the album as well though.
Private Music by Deftones
Another great album to drop last year, really another great feather in their cap so-to-speak.
Era extraña by Neon Indian
Fantastic Chillwave/Synthpop album that is, personally, a quintessential early-2010s indietronica album.
Risk of Rain 2 by Chris Christodoulou
While I do love the game, I truly think that both the first and second games OST’s do some absolute lifting in terms of immersing the player in this sort of dystopian, fleeting hope sci-fi setting. Although, I really appreciate 2 for the ways in which it plays on the tracks from the 1st OST. Tracks like …con lentitud poderosa are great on their own, but the ways in which they pay homage and draw motifs from the first is just chefs kiss.
Hades Original Soundtrack by Darren Korb
Another solid OST, I really like the ways that it respects the inspiration it draws from. Plus Darren himself has put out a lot of great resources on how to play the music yourself which is super respectable.
MM.. FOOD by MF DOOM
All time hip-hop album.
I could go on, but I’ll probably wrap it up there as to not spend the next few hours combing through some of my favorites.
That trophy shelf idea is a really good one. I love the thought of framing my physical media that way. I’ve definitely had trouble reconciling wanting to own my own media with the fact that I’d rather not have a whole bunch of stuff underfoot. I do like the thrill of the hunt, but records might be good to keep while CDs might be catch and release for me. So to speak.
Thank you guys for the suggestions and the resources.
As much as I preach ownership and etc. - it’s hard to beat streaming for recommendations sometimes. Which I don’t have a problem with since we DID use radio etc for discovery back in the day.
Just gotta be intentional with how you engage with it.
I’ve been using a Youtube playlist for my music. Most of it is built by clicking through on songs that are recommended on a certain song I knew already. My watch history for Youtube is turned off as well, this way the recommended songs are actually relevant to the song I’m currently listening to and not based on any AI slop. It’s not fully ideal in the sense of having control etc. but it’s better than Spotify imo. Finding new music this way can be pretty difficult though, but most of it I find by listening to the radio in my car.
Is there any specific genre or style you are looking for? I personally listen to a lot of different genres so here are some of my recommendations:
I can ramble on for a long time about this lol but these are some of my personal essentials