Your method for discovering great music.

I agree with the OP that streaming solutions work best for more casual fans.  The software is trying to figure out what you like and give you similar content.  Great if you're fine walking in place, but if you're searching, it's best to seize the initiative.

The last couple of years have been hard for those of us that rely on a steady diet of live music to bring us new artists, and the chance to watch them mature.  I've been forced to use the Web more - and there is a lot out there!  Here's afew suggestions:

Jazz seems to have done a great job transitioning to pandemic living.  Check out the Jazz at the Lincoln Center website.  They stream a fair number of concerts from Dizzy's, Swing U provides an inexhaustible amount of educational material.  If you like jazz at all, you MUST at least check out a few of the Closer Listening sessions - the amount of jazz knowledge the host has is jaw-dropping amazing (also a frequent teacher at Swing U).  It's free (but please contribute - the cause is music!) and if you enjoy a curated exposure to music, you'll be signing up for Swing U.

SFJazz offers a $50/year digital membership that gives you a livestream concert every Friday at 7:30pm PDT (re-broadcast at 11am Saturday).  Maybe the best deal on the entire World Wide Web.  The price/concert is so low that you may find yourself drooling on the donate button/!

I gotta go, but if you like or want to explore bluegrass, check out Bluegrass Situation and Wintergrass (their annual festival is at the end of February and they're livestreaming everyday from the largest of the venues).  Some of the big bluegrass festivals livestreamed last year, like Rockygrass & Telluride.

I love smooth jazz and have a subscription to jazzradio.com, which also has very specific subtypes.  My favorite subtype is the 'smooth uptempo', to which I listen a LOT.

I learned almost all the new artists and songs by listening to that station.

I am sure there are LOTS of radio stations alike for other genres of music.

primarily "the evergreen channel" [HD#2] broadcast sub-channel on KING-FM 98.1, seattle. sometimes a web search will lead me to a blog or to something on youtube.

Searching for new music is my favourite thing to do with streaming. With a good app (I use Auralic Lightning DS) it becomes a journey from one artist which has recommendations of similar and down the rabbit hole you go. I find with the huge amount of music, I will just play the opening 20 seconds of a couple of songs on an album and if I like the flavour that album goes into my favourites. I spend an evening doing that until I have a load of music I haven’t properly listened to yet, but sounded promising. Then the next evening I’ll sit and play those albums properly and delete those that I’m not into and keep those I am, hey presto I’ve just added 3 albums to my collection.

Aside from that, I will listen to YouTube mix’s and Shazam certain songs, or music in hifi demo videos, on tv or noted in print reviews. If it’s individual songs, wherever I am I’ll save them into my ‘test’ Qobuz or Tidal playlist, again ready to listen to properly at a later time. I don’t use the providers streaming apps much (other than to add songs when I’m out) as most of my listening is at home, but I remember when Spotify was my go to I would find lots of new tracks when it would continue playing at the end of your playlist.

For me though, finding new music takes the time spent doing it, I don’t think there is a simple way of having it served up. So I’d suggest dedicating 1 or 2 hours a week looking through artists and listening to snippets to build a catalogue of ‘potential’ new music before doing the critical listening, that has been the fastest way I have grown my digital collection.

I use Roon often for this.

I'll pick a song at the end of an album from an artist and the genre I am interested in.  I make sure that I have Roon Radio checked as Yes.  Then Roon just chooses music of the same genre & style, within reason.  The great thing is that Roon choses HiRez tracks that all sound great.

Found so many wonderful recording this way.  Some, not so much, but other have been added to my collection, via Roon.