If you’ve ever found yourself staring at your iPod, disillusioned by all the usual suspects and wishing for something new and exciting to entice your ears, you’ve come to the right place. After all, it’s the new year: the perfect time to make good (or not) on all those resolutions, especially when you’ve got a discography full of fresh motivation. Grab your iPhone, or other device, and prepare to find yourself immersed in a world of new music discovery with a few of my favorite music apps, and enjoy some friendly advice for making the most of your musical year.

NPR Music

The NPR Music app is your ultimate music source. Covering everything from indie to classical to world music, NPR is a balanced and intelligent resource. The app features a wealth of free content, including audio of their on-air programs, concert footage and select albums available to stream before their scheduled release.

All Songs Considered, which just celebrated its 15th anniversary, covers up and coming music every week, while the Tiny Desk series features artists ranging from Adele to The Music Tapes, performing acoustic, three-song sets on or near a truly tiny desk in the NPR office. The app is available for free on Apple App Store.

Soundcloud

Soundcloud is a veteran among music-streaming platforms, and is still likely to be the first place your favorite bands will post new material. Demos and EPs of countless artists are posted everyday waiting to be discovered, and the social aspect of Soundcloud has facilitated the popularity of artists like Lorde and Sam Smith. The Soundcloud app recently underwent a major transformation and is primed for continuous listening straight from your feed. Soundcloud is available for free on Apple App Store and Google play.

Spotify Student Premium

Spotify, despite its controversy with some artists over royalties, continues to dominate as the preferred platform for digital music listening. Spotify creates a user-friendly and cohesive digital listening experience for users across devices. Unlike Internet radio platforms like Pandora, Spotify offers a multitude of curated playlists that cater to every kind of event, mood or genre imaginable. When it comes down to a great listening experience, no algorithm can best a handpicked playlist.

And what makes Spotify an even better choice for students is its half price subscription fee – only $5 a month. If you’re willing to part with one overpriced Starbucks drink each month, you could gain access to a virtual font of commercial-free, versatile listening straight from your phone. Spotify is available for free on Apple App Store and Google play, subscription costs $5 for students and $10 for everyone else.

Hype Machine

An algorithmic stroke of genius, the creators of Hype Machine eliminated the cumbersome task of visiting a whole list of music blogs every day to hear worthwhile new tracks. Hype Machine does the work for you, populating a newsfeed with all the most talked about tracks from an extensive list of music blogs. You can also subscribe to Stack, a weekly series of five-song mixes curated by the Hype Machine team and paired with a standout music article, sent directly to your email. It is available for $3.99 on Apple App Store and Google play.

Pitchfork Weekly

Perhaps best known as the most hipster music publication in existence, Pitchfork can be a frustrating experience for those in search of an unbiased outlook on recent underground releases. There is no denying, however, that Pitchfork is one of the best sources for music news and coverage of new content.

Their iOS app, Pitchfork Weekly, is likely the best iteration of the Pitchfork verse, providing a maximum of usefulness and minimum of nonsense. The app includes updated weekly highlights of music news, reviews, thinkpieces and a weekly mix of essential tracks. It is available for free on Apple App Store.

Pause

Pause, one of my favorite new discoveries, is a fledgling quarterly digital periodical that curates the best music articles, charts, reviews and more from prominent music resources on the web. All five issues are included in their entirety for free on their app, and each issue includes streaming video and audio playlists to accompany their written content. For anyone interested in music culture or simply looking for some great reading or app design via the iPhone, you’ll find it here. Pause is available for free on Apple App Store and Google play.

The Vinyl District

And what is the best place to find new music? You already know it—local record stores! No matter how radically the Internet has transformed our access to music, there is simply no substitute for good old-fashioned word of mouth. The staff at local music stores are among the most passionate music nerds you could ever hope to meet, and whatever genre you’re into, they’ve always got a recommendation up their sleeve.

If you’re not sure where to find the nearest music store, there’s an app for that. The Vinyl District uses your current location and gives you map and list layouts of all the record shops in your vicinity. All that’s left for you to do is to go forth and discover! Available for free on Apple App Store and Google play.