How To Find Music Without Spotify

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]More ways to find music without Spotify.

[00:00:02]Last year I made a long list of tips on crate clicking for oddities, but I missed out on a lot. So, let's run it back. I've been really heavy on Bandcamp sorting features recently. I search by specific micro genre or country or city and hit new releases to see what just came out. Similarly, I use Rate Your Music's genre categories. They have like thousands of genres and so many customized lists, and you can sort by new releases. I've been keen on this surprisingly good YouTube music video recommendations. The algorithm tends to recommend things in the same language, so it's helpful if you have a keyboard that can't type in characters for other languages. It'll give you more of the same and deeper stuff. Start at massive clips with 2 million plays, and if you click enough, you'll get down to something with 3,000 views. Of course, you should also check out local radio and college stations. But, let's say you don't want to do any of the actual digging legwork yourself. Interested in the Montreal scene? Try the page MTL music. There's Namibia Cloud for the Namibian underground. Sabukaru Mag, which is based in Japan and does cool interviews with people from all over.

[00:01:03]Under Flechazos got you covered for the Colombia trap scene. UG Tapes India is all about the Indian underground scene.

[00:01:11]Wild Dogs, which means friends, is all about Desi culture generally. Pulp Magazine PH and Pulso World for Filipino culture. Seen Noise for albums and songs coming out of the Middle East. They just put me on to this cool artist Mish Mish.

[00:01:24]Okay, Africa and Pan-African Music for everything from Amapiano to Poop the Call. I recommend Hidden Driveways for niche yet compelling post-digicore-esque interviews. They tapped me into Stickerbush and Heaven Souls. The account Chuwave is sort of like a pan-global highlight reel. Then, try following specific club nights and labels. I've been very keen on Yegge and Yegge Tapes, which houses all sorts of Singali and Rushadia chaos. Marmon Agency is a hub for the Hungarian electronic underground. There's Horchata, a queer trans-led underground Latin party. Oh, yeah, and uh patreon.com.