I ditched Spotify and set up my own music stack

I counted thirteen separate components. If it works for the author then more power to them, but I personally want to spend less time futzing with technology when it comes to this kind of thing and more time actually just actively listening to new music.

I buy from Bandcamp or Apple, sync locally, and I'm done. Bandcamp's iOS app is better than Apple's Music at this point (though not a hard bar to reach). And I find new music organically from listener-supported streaming public radio.

I haven't mentioned analysis or recommendations, but honestly I so rarely seem to find anything through the typical algorithms and recommendation-type mechanisms that I genuinely like, and stumbling across something new just from having public radio on in the background still feels magical, organic, and overall such a good way to broaden your musical horizons.

Still, a good starting point for people wanting their own similar setup.

I've largely given up on algorithmic recommendations and gone back to human curation. There are humans out there writing about music, movies, and everything in culture. I've found the ones whose tastes I largely trust, and I follow them via RSS to read about the things I might like.

Are some of those critics probably using algorithms themselves? Sure. Let them dive into that swamp and pull out the gems. I'll stay on the shore, watch, and wait.