As someone with a tattoo of a clickwheel iPod, I can't help but endorse this.

All of my favorite recommendations and artists have come from friends I know in real life, online or both. Zines, blogs and other music communities are all wonderful sources as well. last.fm's trove of recommendations are still accurate and I hope it holds on.

I have different friends who I ask for recommendations from different genres and then end up in exploring further once they've opened the door.

Everything I listen to is from MP3s streamed through Navidrome living in an S3 bucket. My larger library is in another bucket and mirrored elsewhere. I collect some records but opt for the convenience of listening digitally and that listening consists of whole albums, never playlists (and never anything AI generated).