I’ll answer as well:

I mainly listen to what’s in my current library, using shuffle. When I want to discover new music, I typically look at artists of songs I currently like, and see If I like any of their other works.

Ignoring artists and songs in my current library: I mainly discover music from media I consume, such as games, movies, TV and web videos. If I like a song, I’ll look it up, and add it to a playlist based on a category (mainly genre). If a song has a album, I may look into the album as well.

For anyone in here enjoying radio, but not commercials or radio hosts, try out

soma.fm

It has a ton of channels and genres and is entirely free (donation funded).

Usually I’ve got a specific itch I’m trying to scratch, and often that itch is “novelty”. So I’ll pick a song I like and listen to other things by the same artist. Or listen to community radio. Or ask friends what new music they found recently.

One thing I started doing that I really like is asking peeps to give me mix CDs or handmade playlists instead of buying gifts for my birthday and Christmas.

There’s a lot of great indie music on the fedi, and places to listen to it:

https://nham.co.uk/ Radio

https://theindiebeat.fm/ (several radio channels)

https://tv.theindiebeat.fm/ (24/7 Fedi MTV)

And more : https://nham.co.uk/2025/06/how-do-i-connect-with-artists-on-the-fediverse-cheat-sheet/

I do everything you say.

I also listen to podcasts and follow blogs which recommend me music.

Sometimes i listen to the radio too, or shazam music i hear in public.

90% of the time I know what I want to listen to.

The other 10% of the time I will listen to new things I’ve squirreled away in my personal listening queue, because the art was interesting, I’ve heard good things, or I randomly heard a song I like. Sometimes recommendations from friends will make it into that queue.

Random mixes, not usually. I’m far too picky. But there are niche subgenre mixes that can be good.

1. A lot of music I find anymore comes from me either finding a CD at a thrift store or a second hand local record shop that has tons of CDs. Has to look good to me at the moment.
2. The algorithm that I tend to hate on yt has also brought me some random songs that I ended up listening to that I like. There ain’t no way I would have naturally found a certain furry song I really like, considering it’s all in Vietnamese, without the evil algorithm. Last I checked, I never talk about Vietnam unless they’re in the news that very rare time where I live, don’t know the language, etc. So the algorithm just pulled that my furry account must want it because furry.
3. If I like a song from someone, mainly referring to things like vocaloid and utau type songs, there’s a good chance I will eventually check out other songs from that person. VocaDB is pretty good for that if they don’t have a yt page considering even if they don’t have one, somebody else has probably already uploaded it to yt at some point. I can just look at a certain producers page and hope their song list is up to date or complete in the case of people who ain’t making vocaloid/utau/whatever music anymore.
4. Back on the topic of vocaloid/utau, I tend to be more likely to check out a song in the suggestion section of yt when listening to a song of this genre. Has found me some good songs.
5. Okay, final thing about vocaloid. I have found a few different songs I’ve never heard of that I end up really liking thanks to the Project Diva series and back when I played the Project Sekai mobile game. So checking licensed rhythm games is always a good option, I guess.

Yes. All except search by genre.

I listen to community radio, look at music related websites, let the music app dj, sometimes my kids show me music or vice versa, and opening acts at shows.

I started dating a DJ

Loaded question! When i was younger I had a list of stuff i wanted to try like classic rock which moved to other more obscure genres from the past while also keeping up with what was newer and semi popular through websites, articles, and local radio.

I have always gotten most music off my private pirate sites and use local apps to stream my entire library on my phone, pc, or anything else everywhere. It has gotten so good lately that it can build out radio style mixes based off popular track information and even using AI (first time i have ever thought it was useful) to build playlists of similar tracks in the library based off individual wave lengths to get the best accuracy. I tried using spotify once when i got 6 months free and found that i only used it like 3 times and found it more dificult to find what i wanted or new stuff to check out weirdly enough. These days i mostly just download whats new for artists i already know and see them in the top 10 of my pirate sites or just new stuff in the top 10 that fits the genres i like. At the end of the year ill check out top 50 lists to see if i missed anything and ill get them as well. Its worked out pretty good for the past 20 years now although as i get older it gets harder to find the time or interest in it like I used to…

• Suggestions: Depends.
• Do I search for songs: Yes
• Random mix: Yesnt
  I have my playlist of all songs I like/sorted by topic and use the algorithm-mix to have more of that (which is a complete mix of multiple genres. So the suggestions are very diverse but samey/repetetive at some point).

To find new music:
A: By random chance like at restaurants, generally outside or youtube suggestions
B: Coming across a song while pirating an song/album, looking for the whole album and then liating to the artist if I enjoy more of their works.
C: Window shopping (usually after coming after C) D: Spotify playlists on genres (before they automated those and tailored it to the user. Now it’s only semi functional to find songs not already in a playlist). Listenbrainz has a suggestion mechanism but I never really looked at it. AFAIK it works by looking at the history of you and matching peers and then suggesting content (don’t know if similar or “taste-breaking” suggestions)

Generally my journey is
1: Find song somewhere
2: Look what else the artist put out
3: If the releases generally fit my taste, skip through some albums
4: If I like an album I’ll either buy or pirate it
Buy: The album is reasonably priced
-> New: I want it in peime condition or 2nd hand will not give me any major benefits
-> 2nd Hand: It’s noticable cheaper than new (rereleases) or out of sale

Sites like musicbrainz and discogs make it very easy to look for specific releases and also assisted me in finding new stuff while looking up metadata or cross-referencing other artists out of curiosity.

For example, I wasnt aware that almost artists of ‘Tokyo Health Club’ were individual artists and thus found out that SIKK-O still released songs that were similar to those of THC :)

So if someone likes or is not against japanese lyrics in music I have the following suggestions:

• Chill Rap (also called Jazz Rap): Almost anything from Tokyo Health Club. Similar sounding artists of the group are SIKK-O and Tsubame. I think the others of the group became inactice or transitioned to being in producing roles.
• City Pop: Mellow - The best of J-AOR (album mix)
• City Pop: 変身 by Original Love (album)
• Jazz: Maltese Falcon (マルタの鷹) Kazuhiko Kato (加藤和彦)
• Tōhō/Touhou of various genres with a wide voice range: Anything by Akatsuki Records (暁Records)
• Techno/Club: 攻殼機動隊 MEGATECH BODY.Cd., LTD. (It’s a OST for the PS1 game ‘Ghost in the Shell: Megatech Body’ game)
• Retrowave/Outrun: Anything by Carpenter Brut

I thought I’d try 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (I’m using https://1001albumsgenerator.com/ ), but it’s been a bit disappointing really - I’m nearly 800 in and only found 1 new artist to add to my collection. I guess I’m just old and set in my ways.

i have hard time understanding the case here, how is that you don’t know the TYPE of music you like? I can see that you might ask for suggestions for a given music style, but the type? I don’t get it

mostly the first one, the vast majority of new music i listen to these days is recommended by someone. it’s either that or they’re doing a show or a festival with someone i already listen to. a distant third is the radio, especially after a move

if it’s a new-to-me artist, then i’ll drill down into their back catalog, but that’s only after the recommendation. if it’s a new-to-me genre then i do a lot more independant research but that’s fairly rare these days because i’ve already plucked all the low-hanging fruit.

even before The Algorithm became the mighty spectre it is today, i’ve never been happy with random or algorithmic feeds. Pandora for example would always play songs and artists with the superficial connections to the artist i build the channel off of instead of actually similar-sounding artists. and the same ok-at-best cover of The Guess Who’s “American Woman” every five or so songs, not sure what was up with that. i tried Spotify as an alternative years before it was the mighty spectre it is today and i remember logging out after the third song and never logging back in

As for new things, I stumble upon them.

Sometimes (rarely) I swap to (digital) radio, and occasionally hear songs I’m interested there. From song, I often check out the artist’s other songs too.

Sometimes (maybe always if they show up for me?) I check out songs or genres when they come up here on Lemmy. Not that it’s been particularly successful in giving me new favorites or likes.

I find Arte Tracks quite interesting and it makes me look up genres and music. Not that it’s been particularly successful in giving me new favorites.

Tracks reports on geek culture, current music, film and emerging artistic forms

YouTube Music algorithm streaming me new songs. When they stand out to me I give them a like, playlist them, and/or check out the artist. Soundcloud also has back-filling streaming modes and related songs.

Sometimes in videos (including online, series, anime here) I hear music that stands out to me and I look up.

As for switching up the kind of genre or platform, it’s by mood or chance.