mostly the first one, the vast majority of new music i listen to these days is recommended by someone. it’s either that or they’re doing a show or a festival with someone i already listen to. a distant third is the radio, especially after a move

if it’s a new-to-me artist, then i’ll drill down into their back catalog, but that’s only after the recommendation. if it’s a new-to-me genre then i do a lot more independant research but that’s fairly rare these days because i’ve already plucked all the low-hanging fruit.

even before The Algorithm became the mighty spectre it is today, i’ve never been happy with random or algorithmic feeds. Pandora for example would always play songs and artists with the superficial connections to the artist i build the channel off of instead of actually similar-sounding artists. and the same ok-at-best cover of The Guess Who’s “American Woman” every five or so songs, not sure what was up with that. i tried Spotify as an alternative years before it was the mighty spectre it is today and i remember logging out after the third song and never logging back in