• i always liked soundcloud better because it is where the underground has been; youtube also has many underground gems
• mixes/podcasts and the like
• through music communities
• i explored many of those essential charts in the past
• exploring genres
• sometimes i would pick a region, greenland, iceland, africa, … and listen to some of their music
• there are some interesting youtube channels making documentaries on underground music
• algorithm

Mostly rateyourmusic, my preferred review site. Between the user-made lists, looking at the favorites of people whose taste I respect, and the charts putting together average user ratings with an absurd amount of sorting options, it covers most of my needs.

There are often good hour long mixes of genres I like on Youtube that have the names of the individual songs in the description.

My strategy has been to just go through the list of album reviews on pitchfork and try 2-3 songs from each. Write down the ones I think could grown on me.

Still looking for a review site with no numbered ratings.

Spotify used to be really good for me for a few years, but I think they’ve ran out of stuff to recommend me nowadays. I often get weekly recommendations that I’d marked as “don’t recommend me this” a few weeks earlier.

Sometimes when I’m in search of something from a specific genre, I head over to Bandcamp and look at a randomized list of Artists for that specific genre. Other times I’ll listen to something on Youtube and then take a look at the recommended Music related to what I’m already listening to.

Creating a Post on Lemmy asking for recommended Music could also be an option of course!

• Bandcamps Discover area on the homepage (by genre).
• Youtube recommendations.
• For metal releases https://heavymusichq.com/ does a monthly best of which can be quite eclectic.
• Metalhead.club Release Bot - @releasebot@metalhead.club
• Soundcloud on the odd occasion.

YouTube videos mostly. No joke, I’ll hear a background or intro/outro song I like and look it up.

Also, when out in public listening to the radio in shops and restaurants and stuff.

Also also, video game OST’s. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon has some banger music, as do many other games.

For looking at older classic artists / prog I like the discussions by the music buffs at https://www.youtube.com/c/seaoftranquilityprog mostly for album rankings and then maybe check the best ranked to see if it might be to my taste.