[rocky_raccoon]

Tangential question:

What is the best Pandora-adjacent service these days? In other words, where can I plug in "Artist X" and get a great platter of recommendations?

Spotify doesn't cut it for me -- the recommendations are either hyper-generic or songs that I've listened to many times in the past. Last.fm doesn't seem to have many lights on these days.

Pandora, in its early days, was a great place to discover new music because it would find songs that were roughly similar to what you requested but by often unheard-of artists.

[flanbiscuit]

I use a site called https://www.queup.net which is a successor to turntable.fm. You find a "room" with a genre of music you like and just sit back and listen to people DJ using soundcloud and youtube videos. I have it on all day in a room that is majority electronic/chill/lounge and mostly non-vocal. I've learned about so many artists this way but you need to find an active room you like, and sites like these tend to skew towards the many different electronic subgenres

[mukti]

ListenBrainz Radio can be decent - https://listenbrainz.org/explore/lb-radio/

This is made by the MetaBrainz folks, the same people behind the MusicBrainz database (which is used by ListenBrainz).

[Backing5890]

I haven't personally used it, but I do know that ListenBrainz offers a Last.FM-esque experience, and I see it does have a "similar artists" section. I'm in a similar boat as you though. Most of the Spotify-generated stuff is just repeats of songs I've already liked or just generic songs.

I've been diving into the past about artists I've been meaning to check out and also using Rate Your Music to stay semi-conscious of what's popular today.

[n4r9]

Bandcamp has a "if you like this, you may also like" feature which seems to be unbiased by listening history and allows unheard-of artists to crop up. I've found a few good recs that way although it can be hit-or-miss.

[ewhicher]

I used to use Last FM for this, but no longer. I think this needs to be brought back on modern services. An artist might be in a totally different genre but if they have the same ‘feel’ you might like both