Music is what it's all about- you're raising an importat question. I believe that there's wonderful payoffs to researching & uncovering great music. It's worth the time.
I check music threads at audiogon, audioasylum.com, audiocircle.com & allaboutjazz.com For world music, rootsworld.com and 6moons.com have excellent reviews.
Also, when I find music I enjoy, I take the extra step of looking on amazon.com to see what other purchases people with similar listening tastes bought or/and recommend. To expand my library, I also look on amazon.com in United Kingdom, as different musicians ("authors" as the Brits call them) are popular on the continent.
allmusic.com also can be a source to locate similar artists, and a way to expand into the background musicians included in the band. Their descriptions often highlight musicians who influenced the sound I'm researching.
Many of these sites have short downloads so you can get the audio flavor of new music. There's a giant smorgasbord out there. So much music, so little time.