[screye]

I approach it the way I would approach a reinforcement learning problem.

1st exploration -> then exploitation.

Start by randomly listening to the most popular stuff from random genres, until something somewhat sticks.

Then reduce your search range to the type of music you liked, go to the "enthusiasts forum" for that genre (usually a subreddit) and find the 'true gems'.

Then do periodic MCMC random walk, where I go from my current genre to the most likely adjacent genres to branch out.

For the music I listen to, the chronological journey goes as follows: (with each genre capturing a couple of decades)

Jazz, Blues -> Rock -> psychedelic rock, metal -> prog rock , Frank Zappa, death metal-> prog metal -> experimental prog