It also feels like these things are making me more musically illiterate.
You see enough Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Imaginal Discs and the twenty yearly Trhä albums as super highly praised and something every music nerd should listen to, and forget what kind of music most people actually like… which if you go by the spotify charts, is a lot of slop! And if you go by the radio, it’s mostly the same stuff since 1995.
Soundcloud can still be good for this, but you need to dig or search by playlists. Youtube can be fun, if you want someone’s backporch DJ sets or old filk cassettes.
I’m lucky to have a local community-funded radio station. They’ll of course play the hits depending on who’s DJ and the like, but if you pop the WMSE app on your phone you can have some fun.
What have you been personally craving. I’m sure me or others could point you to some genres or obscure artists. The other day I was jamming to everything from Highlife to Folkpunk.