Alex, certainly no thanks necessary and yes, I have heard a lot of new (to me) music and artists thanks to you. We all look for and find different things to appreciate in music and any art form and form a personal "sphere" of preferences based on those. I don’t, nor should anyone imo, judge another listener’s preferences from a standpoint of superiority or elitism. This is why I have been critical of an attitude that sometimes creeps into these discussions that tries to claim that this thread is somehow an exclusive club of cognoscenti and that only a very small handful "understand"; an attitude that I think has been proven to be wrong. That kind of attitude may feel good, but is meaningless and useless, imo. Ironically, it is precisely that attitude that I think keeps some from participating. As I see it the healthiest attitude as listeners is precisely the attitude that great musicians themselves have: that ultimately the quality of the music is determined by the level of craft and the sincerity of the artist and not by the style, period or genre. For me, historical context and evolution of the styles is really interesting. Not meaning to oversimplify, to you it may be discovering (and sharing) lesser known or forgotten players and the reasons that may be so. We can all learn from each other’s point of view.
