Finding a new artist or band you love is a wonderful feeling, but it doesn't happen too often unless you're actively seeking new music. While many popular streaming services, like Spotify, Amazon Music, or Apple Music, have ways of recommending new tracks to you, it's not always the most reliable.

Sometimes, music streaming services give you a lot of stuff you've already heard before. Luckily, a few apps can help you discover music you'll love, so you'll always have something new to listen to.

1. Indie Shuffle

There's nothing wrong with loving your music streaming app dearly. But sometimes, music streaming apps like Spotify learn your preferences too well and stop recommending valuable new content. This is called Spotify Feedback Loop, and it might stop you from discovering new tunes you might like. Although popular streaming apps have indie artists on them, more popular, mainstream artists seem to be favored and plastered all over the front page.

Luckily, Indie Shuffle is one of the best platforms to discover new music by indie artists, as the app's name implies. You can browse through playlists created by other people that'll help you focus on school or work, exercise, or just chill at the end of the day. Or, you can always see the latest songs from unique artists, with tags to help you figure out if you'll like them and a list of similar artists.

Download: Indie Shuffle for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

2. Pandora

Although Pandora is still a relatively popular app, it's one many people might not think of when looking for new music. Unlike music streaming services like Spotify, Deezer, or Amazon Music, Pandora is more of a radio streaming platform. While apps like Spotify have some kind of radio feature, they're not designed as well as Pandora is, where its sole purpose is providing radio streams that never feel stale.

You can easily search for an artist or music genre you love and add that radio station to your collection. Then, when you open the app, you'll be able to browse all your stations in the My Collection tab quickly. Or, you can also check out the For You tab, where you'll see the most thumbed-up songs on Pandora at the moment, as well as stations organized by genre, artists on the rise, artist takeovers, moods, and activities.

Download: Pandora for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

3. Discz Music

Discz Music is like the Tinder of new music apps. When you open the app, you'll always have new songs to sort through. You can swipe left if you don't like them and right if you do. From there, the app will remember which songs you tend to vibe with more and help you create playlists and find new artists based on your preferred tunes.

Or, you can browse the Discover tab, which will look highly personalized because you have to import your listening history over from Spotify. You can see your top tracks and artists from Spotify and browse similar songs based on your favorites.​​​​​​​

Download: Discz Music for Android | iOS (Free)

4. SoundHound

SoundHound is a great option if you want to identify random songs you hear and find new music. When you first open the app, you'll see a pulsing orange button that you can tap to sing or hum a song that's stuck in your head or have it listen to a nearby radio. Like Shazam, the app will find out exactly what the song is, and then you can decide if you want to add it to a playlist. You can also browse through existing playlists if you don't have any of your own.​​​​​​​

Download: SoundHound for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)

5. SoundCloud

SoundCloud is another service that's known for helping you discover new and upcoming artists instead of just listening to the most popular songs. However, a lot of people use the desktop website but don't know that a mobile app exists.

By using SoundCloud on your phone, you're more likely to find new artists on your commute to work or school or while you're just listening to music around the house, which is one of the​​​​​​​ reasons why you should start using Soundcloud.

On the home screen, you'll see what's currently on SoundCloud's charts, including the Top 50 most played tracks on SoundCloud and up-and-coming tracks. Then, you can also search for music if you know what you're looking for or browse through curated playlists to find something you're in the mood for.

Download: SoundCloud for Android | iOS (Free, subscription available)

6. ReverbNation Discover

You'll be prompted to select your favorite genres when you first download the app and set up your account. You can change this in the future, but the main genre categories stay the same: Alternative, Country, Dance, Folk, Hip Hop, Metal, Pop, R&B, and Rock. Then, the app sends songs your way that fit into one or more genres.

This system helps you discover new music better than Spotify because it mixes up genres. After all, most people don't just love one genre of music. So many artists combine genres as well, so it's awesome to be able to find new favorites this way. When browsing your genre mix, you can add a song to a custom playlist or skip it if you're not vibing with it.

Download: ReverbNation Discover for Android | iOS (Free)

7. Tikify

Tikify is a great Spotify platform for discovering new music and playlists. When you first download Tikify and set up an account, you'll have to link it to your Spotify account. Then, Tikify checks through your artists to see if there are any new releases for you to binge on. Spotify now has a feature that enables you to see when there's new content from your favorite bands and artists, but Tikify can do more than this.

If you browse through your artists, you can select whether you want Tikify to check for new albums, singles, collaborations, or other tracks, like when an artist appears on another artist's song. Unfortunately, Spotify shows you absolutely everything, including the countless remixes of the same song that many artists release at once.

Tikify is only available for Android users, but many apps nowadays are working on support for both Android and iOS platforms, so Apple users, you never know!

Download: Tikify for Android (Free)

Find and Support New Artists

People can often get stuck in a rut of listening to the same artists or albums, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, it can get stale. Popular artists are popular for a reason. They're fantastic at what they do. You shouldn't stop listening to popular music, but add new artists to your rotation and find gems from unique artists.

There are so many great songs and artists out there that are just waiting to be discovered by you. Plus, don't you want to be the person who states the cliche, "I loved them before they were famous," and annoy all your friends?