As you may have guessed by my post about 80s music, a lot of what I listen to is stuff from the seventies and eighties. This being the case, I tend not to purchase a lot of music. The past few years, I've averaged discovering one new band about every 18 months, after which I'll purchase their entire back catalog so long as it's available in some DRM-free format. More often than not, this means grabbing CDs from EBay and then digitizing them and archiving the CDs in my attic. Determining which music is independent has gotten more difficult since the disappearance of RIAA Radar over a year ago, but I do my best.
After a friend of mine sent me a sampler of MC Frontalot's music, I became a big fan of his despite the fact that I'm not generally a rap fan. I similarly became a fan of Jonathan Coulton's music years ago after hearing Skullcrusher Mountain on a podcast. For some reason, I don't yet own a copy of Coulton's latest album, but it is on my wishlist.
I discovered Poets of the Fall after playing the video game Alan Wake just over a year ago. They did the music for the game's fictitious band "The Elder Gods of Rock". I liked the song so much that I found myself listening to the soundtrack and wishing I could have more music from the band. Viola: Poets of the Fall. They're like a cross between Queensryche, Tenacious D, and Jethro Tull. Good stuff.
A couple weeks ago, I picked up the newest Barenaked Ladies album, Grinning Streak. It was my first Google Play music purchase, and I made it only because they sell the music as mp3 files rather than some locked down DRM format. The album is great. Then, just a few days ago, I was surpised that the news that Guster had released a new album entitled Live with the REDACTED Symphony, and that it was available for download completely free of charge. There's no new music, but as the title states, it's all live performances, accompanied by an anonymous orchestra.
Over the past couple days, I've discovered a band called Dispatch, and I've been listening to some of their stuff online. If it continues to grow on me the way I suspect it may, I might be buying some more music.