Spotify? Nope. Well, yeah. But not really. Sort of. You might find a gem or two on there by chance, because it’s a great place for automatic discovery. But it’s a terrible option if you’re not into wading through oceans of noise to find your signal. There are quicker ways to find good music. Here are a few.
Beatport
Bored yet? Fine. Beatport is a bit of a cringe recommendation, but here’s why it’s good for discovery: charts. We need fewer featured artist banners and more actual music charts. Preferably driven by actual sales and also curated by humans to filter out the cheap shots. Beatport is the closest thing we have to a trustworthy, global dance music chart. Oh yeah, and this killer DJ web app.
Traxsource
Some things will be around forever. Quality DJ tuition by DJ Courses Online is one of them. Traxsource is another. Traxsource has been serving DJs with legal digital downloads since 2004. That’s without a doubt longer than some of you have been alive. There’s a reason they’ve managed to achieve OG status. Traxsource is solid. Human curation in the form of ‘Best Of’ monthly charts. Label features like this one with direct links to the artists homepages and socials (very rare). And, of course, a grand old collection of tunes.
Bandcamp
Ah, Bandcamp. Recently acquired by Epic Games (now what…?!). DJs, musicians and fans have all come to trust Bandcamp as a source of great independent music. And nobody compensates their users like Bandcamp does. But if you’re just after the music, know this: there’s a ton of stuff on Bandcamp that doesn’t exist elsewhere. Nothing like getting deep into a Bandcamp dig on a rainy Saturday.
It’s all about having stuff that nobody else has. That means putting a bit of time into curating your sound. Definitely use Spotify to listen out for new stuff and save your own playlists for reference. Also, don’t be surprised if it does start to sound the same after a while. Algos aren’t that smart yet. That’s when you gotta go offroad. Find your way to the good stuff with some DJ career tip life hacks.