If you are anything like me, music and design go hand in hand. Music can help emulate certain moods and help you keep some pep in your step and sometimes, lowering caffeine intake. A big problem arises when you try to balance your time between creating awesomeness and the never-ending search for new tunes. A good way to lighten up your workload on the music end is to follow music blogs. I absolutely love music blogs because what is better than having a steady stream of new music basically thrown at you ever single day. (most of the time, only weekdays. Boo!) Here is a list of 20 music blogs that I have found to be a notch above and all around badass.

The Futurist

The Futurist is an independent music blog of Woxy.com. It's great if you like all kinds of unique indie and experimental music. It's coverage of music events such as SXSW and Bonnaroo is pretty great as well. Over all, this is a nice site to add to your favorites.

4AD Blog

This blog is a little different from the rest because it is the blog of a British independent record label. I included this one simply because It is full of amazing new music and I really enjoy all of the fresh new music I get from their site. Some of the artist on this label, you may already know: Bon Iver, The National, Deerhunter, Iron and Wine, Inc. and Camera Obscura, to name a few. If you enjoy these bands and music styles that resemble them, this a great site for you to frequent.

Gorilla vs Bear

Here is a great site introduced to me by friend and fellow designer, J.B. Chaykowsky. Gorilla vs Bear is an amazing blog for all of you indie and experimental junkies. Most of the music featured on this bad boy is reminiscent of electronic and funk/rock music of the late 70's and early 80's but certainly does not limit itself and is still a great site to visit as frequent as possible. Lots of gems to be found here.

Alter The Press!

Alter The Press is a nice little blog that covers everything from punk, to indie rock, back to hip-hop and pop rock. It covers the bases with better known bands like Simple Plan and LMFAO but also covers many smaller names and mixes the two quite well. This is a good place to go if you want something familiar to mix in with the waves of the under-appreciated music to come knocking at your door.

Chrome Waves

Chrome Waves is the personal music blog of a guy named Frank from Toronto, Ontario. He has a broad taste in music but this is his best attempt at explaining what his blog entails "The mandate of this site has always been, and will remain, to be about whatever tickles my fancy. Nothing more, nothing less. My interests are pretty much indie rock, movies, television, comic books and pop culture in general, so that's what you'll find here. If I someday develop a fascination for needlepoint or chinchillas, that's what you'll find here."

Chunnel.tv

Are you one of those people who love underground music and being "the go to guy" for undiscovered musical/artistic bliss? Yes? Then this is the site for you. The great thing about Chunnel.tv is, not only does it provide a crop of awesome tunes, but it also delivers a wide range of art and media too. This is a good morning link site to scroll through some pages of pure creative gold.

Earmilk

Not only does it sound delicious, it IS delicious. Earmilk is full of some pretty good electronic (or erectronic due to the genre's sexy nature), rap and reggae music. Even if it wasn't for the copious amounts of filthy beats, I would still love this site simply because of its ridiculously appealing name.

Elbo.ws

With a clever site name, Elbo.ws delivers a plethora of news from both popular and indie music. You can find artists the likes of Lady Gaga and Arcade Fire sharing adjacent page space.

I Guess I'm Floating

I Guess I'm Floating is the indie rocker destination for music that all the cool kids haven't discovered yet. If you like energetic and deep, emotional rock you will find this site to be very pleasing to your ear parts.

I Listen To Everything

This site is for the average music lover who doesn't have time to search and search the far-reaching ends of the web to find a couple new tracks that they love. This site is great because it delivers a nice variety of music and a large number of new artist. It is also pretty great because it features playlists for you to browse and also add to your iPod! Yes, I'm amazed too.

In Audio We Trust

Do you like rap, hip-hop, electronic, dubstep, mashups, folk, indie, house or pretty much any kind of music? Here is a bookmark for you. In Audio We Trust brings music news from many different genres to the table. Filtered category pages also make it quick and painless for you to navigate to the genre that you desire. Basically, this site is for the punchdance enthusiast but all other forms of aggressive dances are welcome too.

Motel De Moka

Here is a really interesting site. Hotel De Moka is the collaborative effort of many music lovers. Its pages are graced with unique music that will make you think "WTF" and "FTW" at the same time. I've spotted some foreign tunes on here that are pretty groovy but I'm not big on songs comprised of lyrics that make me wonder "What does that mean" in the sense that the artist is performing voodoo on me and simply not spewing out a string of drug inspired lyrics. I'm just kidding, of course. I'm not really that closed-minded and I hope you remain open to the occasional musical language barrier.

Music For Robots

Don't be confused by the name. You really won't find a ton of electronic music on this site or much autotune for that matter. You will, however, find some pretty groovy indie jams on this site. It has a nice variety of folk and pop infused tunes that you will be absolutely ecstatic to add to your music library.

Newdust

Newdust is a music blog that features vintage and new indie music. You can also find electronic, and pop music through album reviews, mp3 streams, and mixtapes on this bad boy too. Its a fun site ran buy a couple of dudes who just want to help promote undiscovered bands and all-around great music.

Nialler9

Nialler 9 features a wide variety of genres. You can find videos, stream songs, read news and check out their gig list. It is a nice diverse site to help you broaden your musical taste with all different kinds of music. It also has the occasional throwbacks that will help you look back upon music that you may have overlooked and appreciate the music that got us to where we are today.

Oh, Hey Doctor

I absolutely love this blog. It is full of awesome electronic music and features some crazy awesome remixes. I recommend this blog for people who like to "beat the beat up" or, lets take it a step higher "Chris Brown the beat up" (are Chris Brown jokes still acceptable?). Anyway, if you like great beats you should definitely stick with this site.

One Track Mind

One Track Mind spotlights one song a day and features genres like indie, electronic, soul and hip-hop. The thing I really like about this site is that one of it's main goals is to encourage visitors to rate and comment on the featured music. Hearing other peoples opinions on music is always pretty fun especially when you get the hilarious You-Tubeesque banter that can turn a really horrible day into a really horrible day with a brief period of hilarity.

Stereogum

Not only do I find this site attractive, but I also find it awesome. Stereogum is a great site for your daily feed of indie what's-happenings and also some sweet mp3 downloads, videos and streams to take care of your immediate hunger for music.

The Burning Ear

Lions and Tigers and Remixes! Oh, My! Well, there are more than remixes here. You can also find some awesome mashups and original tunes on The Burning Ear. All of you electronic lovers, look no further for your Bangers Beats and Mashups. After experiencing these hard-hitting beats I suggest you pour some earmilk onto your wounds.

Triple J Unearthed

I'm gonna throw you a curve ball for this last blog. Triple J Unearthed is an (wait for it) all Australian music blog. Since I firmly believe that Australians have an amazing ear for music and an insane knack for pumping out quality tracks, I decided to include this blog. You can also find chart listings, reviews and competitions on Triple J Underground which, in my book, make it a pretty solid site, standing along site Triple J which has discovered and established artists for over 30 years.

This concludes my roundup of Awesome Blogs for Fresh New Music. I will soon be posting some unique websites for music discover and also a small list of innovative mobile/iPad apps for music discovery. I hope you found many of these sites appealing and continue your quest of finding new and inspiring music.