>The rest have been total and utter crap at discovery.
Strongly agree that music discovery is, in some sense, generally 'broken' across most platforms and not very good. I have been deeply dissatisfied with just about every system. I found Google Play music to be okay.
My best luck these days is what I would call a "brute force" search through record labels, last.fm similar artists, bandcamp pages for genres, sputnik listings for particular genres, etc.
It's very hit or miss, but I feel like it leads to me to my occasional lightning strikes, which are what I really want. These discoveries are quite different from the guesses put forward my recommendation engines, which seem to smooth out the interesting edges and signatures of personality and gradually draws toward a lowest common denominator, with no lightning strikes.
Strongly agree that music discovery is, in some sense, generally 'broken' across most platforms and not very good. I have been deeply dissatisfied with just about every system. I found Google Play music to be okay.
My best luck these days is what I would call a "brute force" search through record labels, last.fm similar artists, bandcamp pages for genres, sputnik listings for particular genres, etc.
It's very hit or miss, but I feel like it leads to me to my occasional lightning strikes, which are what I really want. These discoveries are quite different from the guesses put forward my recommendation engines, which seem to smooth out the interesting edges and signatures of personality and gradually draws toward a lowest common denominator, with no lightning strikes.