Imeem, Pandora, and general podcasts..

One of my votes was for "other," and one big "other" is hearing soundtracks to homemade Youtube videos, and then I become addicted to the song. I also hear new songs by watching Youtube videos of unfamiliar songs by familiar artists. It's much better than a 30-second iTunes preview.

I have also found songs by typing an interesting word in the iTunes search field and just seeing what comes up. Sometimes it's a musical genre, like "renaissance" or "j-pop." Sometimes it's just a word that I think may link to music I like, such as "dragon." (what??) Typing "renaissance" has hooked me up with one of my favorite bands, Faun, because they have an album called Renaissance.

Finally, "other" refers to my habit of hitting up new people, especially if they're from another country, for their CDs to listen to. I did this to my friend from India when I first met her, and this is how I discovered the incomparable Shankar Mahadavan. I found more of his songs through Youtube and iTunes.

I also voted for radio and podcasts. By radio, I exclusively refer to non-commercial college radio stations, classical stations, and jazz stations. That's the only way for me to find truly unique, expressive music on the radio. As for internet radio, renaissance and "fairy" podcasts ((huh?) have lead me to intriguing musicians such as Owain Phyfe and Caprice. The last episode of "High Orbit" has gotten me interested in a Jillian Goldin...the song makes it sound like Matt has discovered a band of sirens bathing off the coast of the island...hmm, we'll see! [goes to High Orbit to check her name] Hey, wait a minute! There's been an update! For some reason the episodes didn't update in my iTunes list! Gotta go now! ;)

I heard about you by word of mouth ("In the MUCK", actually) and that's mostly where I find new music. Sometimes I download random stuff from emusic.com, where I have a subscription. That probably falls somewhere between "online recommendation" and "store recommendation", I guess. I've had better luck with word of mouth.

I hear a lot of new music from sources like youtube / flash animations and internet streams.

Oh, I forgot to mention thrift stores and resale shops, garage sales. I have found a lot of interesting artists/bands this way.

My other: Label websites.

When I find a band that I like, I hit up their label's website and listen to the samples of a good portion of that label's artists.

I've probably bought more music this way than any other. Mostly because there are usually convenient click to buy links. :)

Good question. I'm trying to find new sources myself. Other than the usual suspects online (last.fm, pandora), I've been using a couple of others:

blip.fm
thesixtyone.com
lala.com