It’s much easier to find organic art in a community, outside the art industries.

Sure, unless you set up a lot of subscriptions it won’t just come on a consumption conveyor belt, and some people might want or expect that, but it’s much better to be in a place where you’re actually interacting with artists.

I get recommendations from real people, not algorithms.

I go to live shows and music festivsls and buy music at the merch table.

Sites like Gnoosic and Music Map. Browsing Soulseek/Nicotine shares. Wikipedia to see who artists have collaborated with or any side projects they’re on.

Bandcamp, but also get to know the artist behind the music. Maybe follow their socials and see if they have other friends that publish music.

Record labels. For any band you like, go to their label’s website, browse the other artists on their roster or peruse the label’s past releases. The bands will likely be similar in style/sound, or at least worth checking out.

I literally look for live performances on YouTube and then look for similar recommendations or, if the artist did it, their list of recommended channels on their own channel.

I work listening to ambient, which is a terrible minefield for AI, but having discovered Martin Stûrtzer led me to discover a bunch of new no AI instrumental and electronic (mostly modular analog synth) music artists.

Bandcamp

I personally am a big fan of Rate Your Music. By cataloging and rating my music opinions there I’m able to get interesting recommendations, but moreso I’m able to actively navigate and explore music by genre, year, year-range, influence, even descriptor tag (breakup or migration, for example).

Better is engaging with it as a pseudo-community; finding others with similar tastes and seeing what else they like, or finding review authors whose writing resonates with you and following them.

As for how this pertains to AI, well you have sort of some protection in the crowd effect; obvious AI is likely to get either called out as such or buried in low review scoring. Users of RYM aren’t infallible of course, but in much the same way that the average lemmy user is already a comparative poweruser when compared to the average reddit user just due to the narrowing of field and additional barrier to entry serving as a filter for those less invested in decentralized internet spaces, the average RYM user is more music savvy and discerning as a listener than the average Spotify listener*️⃣, most of whom just want something on in the background while they do their errands. It’s not going to be a foolproof solution, but at least RYM feels more to me like navigating music through the lens of listeners rather than marketers and algorithms.

(*️⃣This is not a value assessment, I’m not saying RYM users are better listeners or inherently have better taste than anyone, just that they’re on average more invested in active music listening as a hobby.)

Curious how you are using Spotify.

I learn about new music by playing Spotify song radio based on a song I like, and then adding the good songs I discover to a playlist.

Any standouts I listen to the whole album and research the artist.

Its not as good as when I was in high school and cross pollinating with the other music nerds bit it is ok.

Listen to the billions of songs made before 2016 lol. You got a lot of catching up to do.

New does not equal good.

Beyond that, follow trustworthy artists. The only way to fight the slop is with community and trust.

Blogs and small web stuff can be pretty useful.

i stopped using spotify altogether and limit myself to yt music with adblock and sometimes look at the “discover” playlist or just let the platform autoplay songs

so far I haven’t been recommended AI slop that way

I don’t usually listen to anything newer than around 2010 anyway. 🤣

YT music is way better than Spotify. But some AI stuff is reccomeded .I haven’t used Spotify in probably almost a decade. I used to use Play music back in the day and got in the habit of downloading albums and uploading them I used a different service since google nuked play music and revived in as yt music.

But downloading and building your own music library you cultivate is the only way to vett music sources and ensure you aren’t listening to slop

I discover new music by listening to music themes radioshows. NPR New music Friday is pretty awesome, and there’s at least a dozen more in various public radio channels abound the world.