I’ve been having trouble finding new favorite musical artists. Having been disappointed in many of my childhood favorites, there’s only a few artists I genuinely binge. I think I have this problem where I need to relate to what the artist says in most of their songs. It’s a sort of parasocial relationship, because the more songs of theirs I relate to, the more likely I am to enjoy their new songs.
So I was thinking, it would be cool if there was a website that asks you questions about yourself, and then based the information we have on music artists online, it finds the closest match. For example, it asks personal questions like “did you grow up poor?” or “what is your political ideology?”, etc. And say you answer “yes” and “communist”, and then it finds you an artist who also grew up poor and is a communist. I feel like this would allow for finding more relatable music.
I have a feeling such a website doesn’t exist, but I just wanted to put my idea out. However, if you know anything even similar to this, let me know.
I don’t know about one for personalities (I try not to get too invested in an artist’s personal beliefs) but for finding similar artists, I like to use Spotify artist network which maps out similar artists as nodes and lines using Spotify’s api. It’s pretty good for finding artists with similar vibes.
This doesn’t really work for me, because it mostly just shows me artists in the same genre, most of which I’m already aware of and don’t care about. I’m really more looking for music that conveys similar meaning/concepts. The genre is less relevant here.
I’ve used ChatGPT for this before, with decent results. Give it whatever information you want, and ask it to recommend songs.
My only disclaimer is that it will usually start with obvious bands that you’ve already heard, so I usually add in that I’m looking for niche bands. You can also respond to its suggestions to refine your results and find something new.
That is a great idea, I should try it, thanks
I find it fun to browse through genres and moods/styles, “similar artists”, etc on Allmusic.com
Then I play a song on YouTube or bandcamp to see if they’re good.
The moods and themes are pretty cool categorizations. I should give it a try. Thanks!
It’s not really what you want but it helps you find similar artists to those you already like.
Yeah, I’ve tried this, it’s not very helpful for me.