Once upon a time, in a far away land, there were magical places such as these:

(photo via: wehoville.com)

Here, you could soak up the air conditioning in the stifling summer heat, or escape the winter rain by spending hours browsing amongst the rows and rows of CDs. With this wonderland of new and old music in basically every genre, it was extremely easy to find a variety of really great music.

Now that these great places are pretty much extinct, it is a little harder to find good music that isn't in plain sight. The radio is great, the top 20 is great, but at some point many people find themselves in need of a musical makeover. When trying to find new music, it's hard to even know where to start. A lot of finding really good music has to do with exploring. Here are some sure-fire ways you are guaranteed to come across a great song.

Put your radio on Scan Mode.

This can be annoying for some people because the radio just hops around from station to station. However, by doing this, you’ll expose yourself to stations you didn’t even know existed. There have been countless times where I have had the radio on scan and heard a song I really loved, later adding it to my Spotify playlists. The great thing about this is there are a lot of stations that play throwback jams, oldies, and newer stuff that’s not necessarily in the forefront of mainstream music. Here is a song I recently came across by putting my radio on scan… I have NOT stopped listening to it; it’s the perfect summer jam:

Have the SHAZAM app ready when you’re watching movies at home.

No, seriously, tons of movies have amazing soundtracks, especially if you’re watching an old movie or a movie about the past. For example, movies like "American Grafiti" or even shows like "Mad Men" are goldmines for great exposure to fantastic music that you might have never come across otherwise. SHAZAM is the coolest app because all you have to do is hold it up to the speaker and get all the information about the song. It’ll save a list of tags for you to which you can go back to and refer to the songs you may have forgotten about. For example, one night I was watching the movie, "The Way He Looks," and came across this fun song:

GO OLD SCHOOL.

This is one of my biggest pieces of advice. Honestly, once you start exploring old music, the sky is the limit on what you can find. Talk to your parents, relatives, any person older than you, and ask them for good music suggestions. When I was driving back home from school, my dad came with me and showed me all of his favorite songs that he used to listen to when he was my age. It was so much fun to hear all of these songs reference things I’ve only read in history books, or use slang that makes absolutely no sense now. Here is an example of a great oldie with a message (which actually seems pretty relevant right now with what has been going on in the news lately):

Start at the source.

There are so many genres of music (obviously), and each genre has a pretty interesting history. One really great way to explore new music is to find songs that helped form and influence the genres that you really love today. Not only will you find a library of wonderful music, but also you will be able to experience the transition of music throughout the decades and the genre’s different trends. Take for example, the ever-popular "Uptown Funk." This song was an absolute hit; the song is playing everywhere. I feel like this song sparked somewhat of a funk revival—and if more people researched funk and it’s origins, they would find more songs they could groove to. Here is a wonderful funk song that (in my opinion) was heavily underrated for its day (1970), but sounds like it could be a new release:

Don’t be afraid to venture out of your comfort zone.

There are obviously genres that not everyone likes, and that aren’t very popular among our age group. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t great songs laying about somewhere in a jazz or country/bluegrass collection. One great way to expose yourself to great music is to look up music you may not necessarily enjoy, but explore different artists and songs and sub-genres in that genre. It’s almost guaranteed that you will come across something that you love that you didn’t expect to. Recently, jazz is something I’ve been getting into. My parents always listened to smooth jazz 98.1 when I was growing up, and me wanting to listen to radio Disney, I resented jazz and swore I would never like it. Yet here I am, listening to great songs like this:

Now that you’ve read this article, maybe you have come across some songs you like and some tips to find even more great music. And, if you’re too lazy to keep exploring, that’s totally fine. Now you have 5 more songs to listen to that you may have not found otherwise!

Happy listening!