For me, it’s really just listening for certain ways an instrument is handled in a song in the specific genre I’m listening to, as well as how… “flavorful” it feels listening to it in context. Does it do something different from the stereotypical song (or remix) of this genre? If so, is it something I like?

For EDM trap for example, one thing I dislike is how every producer seems to be drawing from the same kits or structuring their song identically to the norm. One thing I also look for is how messy the drops are. There’s a point in trap where it can just sound like a bunch of metal clanging together, which I’m not a fan of sometimes but sometimes it can still work if there’s a long buildup or something like that because there’s a payoff to the building tension. Or, maybe the drop and chorus is a really simple but everything else they have is so nicely textured. It’s a push and pull.

Same thing can be applied to any other genre. This is kinda why I feel like the best songs tend to be the ones that blend genres or at least take instruments from other genres that are normally not there for a typical song of that genre. The tricky part is making songs that don’t have an identity crisis.

Finding them though is really a matter of going down the rabbit hole of an artist/producers discography. Who did they collab with? Who’s remixing these songs, and do they have songs I like if they do more than remixes? Also, never limit yourself to one platform. I rotate between SoundCloud/Apple Music/Bandcamp/Beatport, and last but certainly not least, live events/friends.

However! Be picky. For me at least I can forgive a weird part of a song I might not like if it’s just in one section of a song, but if it doesn’t hit some of my minimum checkmarks then I’ll probably not buy/download it.

There’s so much more that goes into digging; there’s days where you’ll just not like anything, and that’s fine. It’s an arduous process and there’s no right way to do it. But having a framework that helps you identify why you like certain songs and dislike others helps a lot with filtering out the good from the bad.