Maybe it doesn’t get talked about much relative to other, more “mainstream” music, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t somewhere out there on the World Wide Web where the kinds of music you like get talked about. There are probably blogs or websites or YouTube channels or Facebook groups or etc. for the kinds of music you’re interested in.
I’m an Amazon Prime member, and I’ll sometimes search/browse through the music that’s available free to listen to on Prime.
Sirius XM satellite radio. Started listening to it in my Chevy pickup when I bought it. I now stream it through my computer and a couple blue tooth speakers. There are at least 15 channels that are in line with my tastes and a couple feature live music, my preferred way to listen to rock music.
I often watch YouTube videos about a specific artist if I feel in the mood for it, & listen to their music out of curiosity. After that, Spotify recommends me other artists from a similar genre. That’s really how I got into rap/hip-hop music.
I watch a movie, like the music, buy the soundtrack or score. I buy a video game and download the soundtrack/score (sometimes before playing the game). Per ITunes that describes my music acquisitions since 2020. In the beforetimes of 2019 and earlier I also would occasionally impulse buy a small number of CDs off the rack (including christmas music), though I’ve still mostly let movies and games introduce me to things since 2010, if not earlier (that appears to be when I uploaded my existing CD collection to ITunes).
I don’t stream on principle, and per ITunes I currently have 11,914 songs - enough to listen to 24.3 days without repeating. (Note that this is including one or two oddities like the 1938 War of the Worlds radio broadcast and the entirety of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, plus some of those spoken tracks you find interspersed between songs on some albums) I have three bookcase shelves filled with CD cases stacked two deep. I have enough music. I get that I could expand my horizons by finding more and different interesting genres, but that’s what the movies and games are for.
I am a musical dilettante, I’ll listen to anything once. I was really excited when I first found Pandora but eventually was disappointed in the variety of music selected by a station. Even with a lot of stations on shuffle the variety was just not there for me. Finally I realized for the variety I desired, I would have to seed it myself but just in one station. So about five years ago I started radio motu, begiining with a stream of consciousness months-long seed binge of favorite artists and songs. Pandora does a good job of linking similar music which I liberally used. I also have been going down Google search rabbit holes for years for artists, genres, countries and instruments. YouTube has helped also. I also keep an eye on music threads on the message boards I frequent. A couple of years ago I realized that Pandora is not exactly made for what I am doing, when I use the “see all” station created from command, I could no longer see the initial part of the list. Because of this, I am unable to edit some artists that I “over-seeded”, that I feel play a little too often. Nonetheless, with thousands of artist, I do get variety. It’s not perfect, a work in progress but it is the soundtrack to my life. Many people probably would not like my station, some might. For five bucks a month, Pandora is commercial free and you can play on demand the majority of their library. So if I hear something good , I can binge on it.
I have never shared this:
I listen to a local NPR related station that plays music all day long. There are two different shows, one from 9-12 and one from 12-2, then they go to World Cafe. WITH if you’re interested. They do a great job of mixing old stuff with new stuff. I’ve heard a lot of newer artists on there, and it requires no input from me.
Similar to other internet-based music posters, I get a lot from my existing streaming services, primarily amazon prime music (not unlimited) which is my most-used part of my Amazon Prime perks. It’ll suggest music based on what I’ve listened to/liked in the past, and I’ll find a gem or two there, along with other various ‘based on your past plays you might like…’
The other big one is youtube playlists, but as noted, it’s easy to fall into a an endless loop of finding something good, listening to 20-30 meh songs based on the first, and then something else good, which leads to another 20-30 meh and so on and so forth.
But once you’ve curated all those good (and a few meh that grow on you) into a playlist, you start building up a number of good, ‘new-to-you’ playlists that are a ton of fun.
I mostly don’t. My music library more or less froze in time about when I turned 30, circa 2010. If I hear something that catches me while out and about I’ll Shazam it and add it to the library via Apple Music. But I mostly don’t even really listen to music much anymore.
College radio is a gold mine for new or different music. Many even stream online and can be connected through Alexa. Check out Northwestern University’s station WNUR at 89.3 FM.
I listen to podcasts a lot, some about music and some with music in them that leads me down paths.
NPR has a podcast (and show?) called All Songs Considered that covers a wide range of music including modern classical music.
Also it seems like just about every radio station has steams and or podcasts. It should be easy to Google and find some that catch your ear.
Radio Garden that I linked to above has it. The NPR app has it, and if you have a smart device like Amazon Echo, you can say “Alexa, play WCLV” and it should have it. As long as you have internet, it’s pretty darned easy to access thousands of radio stations worldwide. As a kid who got excited when on a day with exactly the right meteorological conditions I could hear radio stations from as far away as exotic Colorado on the AM dial, much less my uncle’s multiband radio, it’s a radio listener’s paradise out there.
I haven’t had a commute in four years so my exposure to new music has dwindled. New songs now come into my purview from a few places:
Movies and TV shows. This is the big one. I will hear a song I like and Shazam it on the spot.
Podcasts. A few podcasts I listen to will either play snippets of songs or interview musicians which opens up new music to me.
Stores that play radio as background noise. In particular there is a place I stop at for coffee that plays the lite/top 40 station and I sometimes hear stuff I then Shazam.