Over To You: How Do You Deal With So Much New Music As A DJ?

Today’s question by new subscriber DJ Tantrum is, I suspect, one that will resonate with many of our readers. DJ Tantrum writes: “I’ve been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of new music and remixes that have exponentially grown over the recent years. As an open format DJ, it is very easy to get lost in an ocean of tunes, genres and moods. Do you know of a system to help refine the process of new music discovery?”

Digital DJ Tips says:

Been there, grappled with that. I remember when our local record show had 20 new releases a week and there was no internet. My, how times have changed! My advice would be to simply let go: Realise you can never hear everything. It’s OK. Nobody expects you to any more.

That said, you can optimise the time you have to hear new music by finding a few people who have got time to spend all day every day discovering tunes and tapping them up for the best of the best. In other words, curated streams: Podcasts, Mixcloud shows, specialist radio broadcasts – anywhere you can find DJs in the genres that interest you presenting regular round ups of what’s new.

“Curated streams” are a major timesaver, and can give you at least some confidence that you’re not missing anything massive. However, I’m sure our readers have had to find ways to deal with this issue to, so I’m going to make this one an “over to you”.

So… over to you! How do you deal with “new music overload”? Do you have a system? Any tips or tricks to share with DJ Tantrum? Please contribute below!