CMJ (College Music Journal) is the main source of new music to college radio stations. It is a music events/publishing company that holds the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City every fall, where any college stations come together to share ideas about music.

At WRPI, the music department works closely with CMJ to stay updated on new music. There are several students dedicated to staying up-to-date on this. When new music is played, the album is logged as having been played. This plays an important role in determining what new music is sent to a college radio station. At WRPI, the head music director tallies up the play counts on newer music and sends the report in to CMJ. CMJ in turn will send WRPI's name to the appropriate record labels to send more new music.

Although CMJ deals with all genres (loud rock, alternative rock, rap, indie, and jazz), it deals largely with indie (typically unsigned rock). There are many new bands all the time in this genre. Due to the nature of college radio and the tendencies to play non-mainstream music, CMJ tends to focus more on indie than the other genres.

CMJ is not the only source for music. New artists send music to radio stations like WRPI all the time looking for some airplay that they would not get anywhere else.