The Oil Slick: Three Awesome (and Free) Apps for Discovering New Music

With the sheer amount of music out there, it can be a little intimidating to venture past trusted favorite artists and into new territory.

Luckily, most of us have something in our pockets that make finding new music a breeze. Your smart phone has a wide variety of apps to help you find your next major band crush.

These three apps are incredibly helpful, and even better, they're all free!

Songza

One of the best applications not named Pandora, this beauty not only lets you pick music by genre but from playlists based on the time of day and different activities. For example, Songs to Drink Whiskey To on a Friday Night. Yes, seriously. The stations have no commercials, and you can skip as many tracks as you want. It's a really great (and free) way to dip your toes in a lot of different genres. Just remember to write down the songs you like.

SoundCloud

One of the best platforms for artists to upload tracks, SoundCloud is an amazing tool for finding bands that fly under the radar. You can sort music by how popular it is or by how new it is, and there's even the option to download most of the tracks. It's a great service and an amazing way to find some great up-and-coming bands to show off to your friends.

TuneIn

Offering radio stations from your local area as well as across the globe, TuneIn is better than most Internet radio apps because most of the time, its shows exactly what song by which artist is being played at that moment, helping you find the song and station that fits your mood almost effortlessly. The stations are incredibly varied, ranging from Internet techno stations to reggae from Ghana.

John Grimley writes The Oil Slick for GuitarWorld.com.