Hi gang. Looking for some new music to listen to at work. I have trouble with music that’s too repetitive because my brain says “hey, something is happening here” and pushes it to the foreground of my attention. An awful lot of pop falls into this category.
Otherwise I’ll try just about anything, as I’m looking to expand my horizons a bit.
Please only recommend stuff that you’ve personally listened to and enjoyed. I don’t need help googling or writing an AI prompt in Spotify. 
There are loads of free to listen to internet stations available to stream. And commercial free on top of it. Any genre you can think of—just do a search for ‘internet radio stations’. You’ll find sources from around the world. Once you’ve found several to your liking you can narrow those that broadcast at a decent bit rate so you don’t have to listen to poor sound quality. I listen mostly to jazz fusion but am open to any music that features good musicians.
Sites such as: Live365 - Browse genres offers lots of stations to select from.
Or since you’re accustomed to pop, you might find a station such as: https://rtds.ca/ (radio that doesn’t suck) to your liking.
Thank you. To be clear, I’m asking for specific recommendations. I know how music streaming works.
How new is “newer?”
And does newer music from long-established artists interest you?
Do you mean ‘new to you’, or actually new?
If you like rock music, I just bought the new album from the Pretty Reckless. And last week I got Rachel Bolan’s ‘Gargoyle of the Garden State’—I wouldn’t characterize either of them as repetitive, and they are both brand new albums if not brand new bands.
When I need something without lyrics because I need to concentrate, I usually put on something from Nita Strauss. Her latest is a few years old, maybe four or five at this point.
Maybe the last few years?
My taste mostly froze in the early 2000s though, so anything after that is potentially new to me.
If anything’s fine, just fire up your local streaming app and point it at your favorite college station. Here’s mine.
If you just want a random song recommendation, here’s one.
Not really sure how to give a recommendation based on no constraints, but if you can narrow it down to a genre, style, anything, it would be helpful. Most songs have some sort of repeated motif, except for more artistic/experimental stuff, which mostly wouldn’t be work-friendly (imo).
I could help more
Not at all new, except to me is the album Hex by Bark Psychosis. Apparently it is the album that led to the coinage post-rock in 1994. I only recently discovered it and like it very much. The reason I recommend it is that although the songs have all the familiar elements of other songs they seem to meander amongst them and therefore fail to form any kind of groove.
This song from Cult Vacant has multiple hooks. And it’s been released within the last 13 months. With that in mind, it meets the title criteria. Though I’m not sure how long of a work shift this will entertain. (Their song “Toothless” is similarly catchy.)
Prisoner is a new band from France that I’ve been listening to. I’m unfamiliar with the other musicians, but the singer is a go-go dancer I’ve seen dancing for several different bands.
The woman’s high heeled boots have about a 1/2" square peg for a base. Can’t be easy dancing on grass where the heels would dig in if she stood on them.
But yeah, there’s nothing repetitive about that music.
You have to repeat something, else you are in Xenakis city (and, even there…) I recommend it, but it is hardly newer music.
So, too much change turns into background noise for you? That’s unusual I think. Artistically a change in tempo, volume, or rhythm is often used as a cue for “Now pay attention to THIS bit…” Do you have an example of what you’re looking for? Like, what you listen to at work? Follow up: are you looking for something where each song on an album sounds like it might be from a different band, or do you want more or less constant change throughout a single track?
More like something repeated many times becomes actively distracting. I’m not asking for music that has no motifs or themes, just stuff that isn’t repetitive. Think about a track where the back two minutes are the same chorus, that kind of thing.
Really I’m just asking what people like from the last few years with that one caveat. That’s all.
I listened to both of these today and liked both, especially the Pretty Reckless album. I’ll be listening to more of them for sure. Thank you!
