Shea: Music ruts come from iPod laziness

I’m in a rut — a music rut, that is.

I’m stuck in the A’s list of… I’m in a rut — a music rut, that is.

I’m stuck in the A’s list of my iPod. My musical spectrum has been some randomly selected combination of The Avett Brothers, The American Analog Set, Adrienne Young and Adele. Why A’s?

It’s partly because I’m too lazy and uninspired to scroll down any further, and partly because there are a lot of good bands and artists whose names begin with the letter A at my disposal without so much as a flick of a finger. It’s pretty pathetic.

I just haven’t stumbled upon anything new that’s struck me.

I’m not alone, though. Ruts happen to all music lovers at some point or another. Bloggers are known to throw out requests for their readers to throw out some suggestions to help them out. Sadly, not everyone has a blog following her music woes and so most of us have to find new ways to pull ourselves out of them.

To some extent, I guess I can blame mid-terms and the gloom of late February for my lack of initiative — but, I’m done making excuses. It’s time to get out of my rut in the ways I know how.

1.) Pandora — I know I’ve harped about how freaking awesome Pandora is before, but I really can’t get past how much I love it. It’s ideal for this kind of situation. It’s pretty much made for matching you with what you like. My only complaint about Pandora is that sometimes it’s too good. A lot of the time I know nearly every band that comes up on a given station, but when I’m on a mission to find something new it can be frustrating.

Results: Badly Drawn Boys, Band of Horses

2.) Blogs — This is not as easy as Pandora because it does take some scouring the big wide Internet, but just reading album reviews can help tip you off to what you want to know pretty quickly. More importantly, it can also inform you as to whether an album’s worth your time. Many blogs, like Pitchfork, even have music players on the site — so you don’t have to jump around the web looking for free streaming.

Finds: Spoon’s new album.

3.) Friends — Sometimes one of the best ways is to just toss your flash drive to one of your music-geek friends and tell her to give you something new. The people who know you — and your ever-so-refined tastes — more often than not can hit the nail right on the head. Plus, when the aforementioned new discovery comes to town, you’ll know who to call!

Results: Colin Meloy covering Neutral Milk Hotel’s “King of Carrot Flowers”