Asklemmy

I fucking hate YouTube Music, but the discovery algorithm is undeniable brilliant, even compared to Spotify

It takes maybe six months of skipping tracks you don't like and fully listening to ones you do to teach it, but after that it's pretty amazing

I share an account with my wife who has a hugely different taste, but it manages to find stuff we both like

ReVanced is the way

Completely ignoring your question to say, that Peacemaker soundtrack is awesome! I had no idea about a lot of those songs but now the title track is my ringtone. Lol

I hate to say it but Pandora has been useful here, when it actually finds similar sounding bands rather than just bands from the same era.

I found Tape Five by spinning out from Postmodern Jukebox, for one example.

Many, perhaps most, music services have towards the bottom of an artist page a list of similar artists that you can explore. Also, if you see what compilations a song, or an artist, is on you can see what else is on that collection.

Also, music services have collections for different styles of music. As you listen to those, if you like a song you can try to see if you like other songs from the same group / artist.

I’m lucky to live in a really good radio town. For the last 10 years, I have found the best new music consistently from the KUTX community supported radio station.

You can listen to them online too. Laurie Gallardo is sort of my low key hero.

https://kutx.org/

Are you in the US? You might want to check out the eurovision song contest. I've become familiar with a lot more new music that way.

And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead’s album So Divided! https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kxLqnOo6nF_rB-JCbX2yf_AfsfPDx5h3k&si=CweERMj0J0MOpXh8

You could try random internet radios, usually long lists are easily searchable and just listen to them for a few mins at a time to see if you like anything then if you do look up that bands albums, or if you're really interested read up about artists and what music inspires them and branch out from there.

The last few times I've found music I like via a method that was repeatable was searching through tags on Bandcamp. If I was listening to something I liked, I could look at the tags (electro, downtempo, big band etc) and click a few of those to find similar music. As far as a filter for quality, the number of followers for a page might be a decent metric because the genres are extremely precise and niche, and most of the biggest artists don't self publish. There's some amazing stuff on there to be found.

I use Pandora a lot. Often I'll go to YouTube to watch the video.

So I put in a station on Pandora and when I hear a song I really like (or several I like from one artist) I put that artist in as a station on Pandora. Lather, rinse, repeat. I'll usually find a bunch of new stuff I haven't heard before and I'm pretty sure many of them are from little known artists because when I put their songs into YouTube, I notice they frequently have few views. Ex. Jem. Hope this isn't too obvious.

I like finding playlists that people on Spotify have made roughly around a particular band or genre. I find one and hit shuffle and see what happens. I'm talking an actual user made playlist, not the garbage Spotify "made for you" playlists. Those used to be solid until they started stuffing them with 90% songs I already listen to.

Sometimes playing the last song on an album that I like or one of my playlists gets some good stuff out of Spotify's algorithm, but that is kind of hit or miss. It used to be quite a bit better.

Local community radio show. CKUT and CISM in Montreal have great niche music shows: math-rock, electronica, experimental, underground hip-hop, name it, there's a show for it.

Lots of music groups in Lemmyverse. You could scroll those groups.

Here's my 3 recommendations:

Shakey Graves: https://youtu.be/sD72LbIk02M?si=6qQDZq_rJrgW2dA8

Sister Sparrow and the Dirty Birds: https://youtu.be/-53w2mv_upw?si=BpMtoEc1LATgPKnv

Tank and the Bangas:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=RDEMKcpkf9AmJ-qvkn3N1r-WRw&playnext=1&si=EG3MmOJjFA2PYpVS

I strongly suggest NPR Tiny Desk series. Great introduction to good artist of all types.

Get some friends that like the same “kinds” of music as you. Ask them.

I’m hesitant to link back to reddit, but I’m not sure there’s any community with quite the same amount of engagement/content yet. They have rules against number of views/plays to try to keep posts about lesser known stuff.

https://www.reddit.com/r/listentothis/

The few things I liked about siriusXM when I had a subscription were alt nation (except Madison… ugh) and XMU. The DJs occasionally had insight into their choices but you can find the playlists themselves here

https://xmplaylist.com/station/siriusxmu https://xmplaylist.com/station/altnation

There's no really good fool proof methods. But just know that anything you hear on radio or through popular media is strictly speaking just the most tip part of the iceberg of the music that's out there.

Last.FM though is a very good tool starting out. You can look up an artist on the site. And towards the bottom of their page it will give you links to other artists rated as similar. And it often does a fairly decent job of it. You go through the first few of those or look at the ones that keep popping up on that artist and other artists. And pretty soon you will find something new. Never before on the radio. Or never before played for you that you like.

The other thing I might suggest is to go on a genre safari. Look up the names for some of the different genres and track down some of the music from those genres and give them a listen. Again there's a shit ton of stuff that will never be played for you unless you play it yourself. And a lot of it's pretty good. Some of my favorite less played genres include....

Postpunk, the predecessor to goth, new wave, and alternative. Including classic bands like Devo, The Talking Heads, The B52s, The Cure, Siouxie and the Banshees, New Order and Joy Division. Still going on today internationally with newer groups like Vestron Vulture, Molchat Doma, Bragolin, New Wave Kill, Boy Harsher, Buzz Kull, Twin Tribes, Drab Majesty, She Passed Away, This Cold Night, and Priest.

Electro Swing is great if you're looking for something eclectic with a pumped up beat. Imagine big band swing music sliced up over a bed of Dubstep and house music. Caravan Palace, Jamie Berry, Parov Stellar, Pisk, Swingrowers, and the Electric Swing Circus

Synthpop/Retrowave two huge but related generas. If you like synthesizer heavy new wave or a heavy nostalgic 80s gut punch. They deliver in spades. VNV Nation, De/Vision, Covenant, and Glass Apple Bonsai. Carpenter Brut, Ghost Data, Occam's Lazer, Wice, Magic Sword, Dance With The Dead, and Scandroid.

Horror Punk, a fun long lasting genera. Classics like the Misfits, and acolytes like Blitzkid, and Argyle Ghoulsby. Zombina and the skeletones, Nim Vind, Calebrese, The Other, Die Monster Die, and Spookshow.

"Underrated" and "awesome" tend to just... mean roughly the same thing in this context, and it's so individual it's hopeless to try to recommend stuff based on that alone. Popularity or unpopularity doesn't necessarily speak to how much you'll like it, either.

Recommendations are easier to give the better you know your tastes, and the better you can describe them.

You can also do some thinking about what you like and why, and see how others describe that song/album/artist/whatever to get some useful starting points. If you want to nerd out, Wikipedia and the like can tell you a lot about musical influences that shaped this or that style, and you can track it down and see if it resonates with you.