Most
of the new tools for music discovery revolve around collaborative
filtering - relying on the wisdom of the crowds - but sometimes crowds
turn into mobs and are not always so wise. CF systems have a
number of well known problems: cold-start issues, popularity bias,
inertia. One new music discovery tool that rejects the wisdom of
the crowds model is CriticalMetrics. CriticalMetrics makes
recommendations based on what the experts are saying. They mine
the ratings of dozens of music review publications (from the New York
Times and the Rolling Stones to many small pubs like Paper Thin Walls and URB)
and recommend music that has received rave reviews.
CriticalMetrics lets you listen to the songs, filter them, put links to
them in your blog: (Here's an artist I found that I liked: Art Brut).
It's a pretty cool site - and a great way to find new music.