Like many, I used to wander around all the record stores in my area the big chains and my local indies. Saturday was buying day and used to take gambles on only an article in my favourite music rags or you might have been lucky and heard it on John Peels show or heard it in store. I’d come back with loads. Streaming is now my record store to browse and listen, then if I really like buy them.
I did not know that. Thanks for the information. In any event, my very eclectic musical tastes (yes I do listen to other genres besides jazz and even within the “jazz genre” I’m all over the place) confuse the heck out of all these AI algorithms. So much for AI taking over the world, Siri and Alexa are pretty much worthless with any question even remotely challenging. Oh and try using Shazam on a live recording, pretty much worthless, same as it is on almost all classical music.
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There was a music app… maybe Lastfm, or perhaps Pandora. You’d put in artists you’d like, then you could move a slider around for:
stuff you like <------> stuff we think you might light
My most successful way of discovering new music was to date the daughter of the Director of Finance at a radio station.
Once he had decided that i was not the worst candidate to date his daughter he would let us both go through the “waste” bins at the station and take as many of the unusable promo albums that we could carry.
My favourite from these hauls was Michael Dinner’s “Tom Thumb the Dreamer” an excellent West Coast sound and now quite a rarity.
Sadly the relationship ended and although i tried hard to replicate it, the pick up line of “does your Dad have a senior role at a radio station” is not conducive to romance!
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Hold steady boys and girls of America was discovered this way and always love it when you take a punt in a record and it pays off.
When I was younger I got many albums this way of all genres. But, then an album was only 3.99 USD.
In my younger days a lot of music came from the Base Exchange at $1.99 each. That was a bargain even then. After that is was the Columbia Record Club. I got some great and not so great music by forgetting to tell them I didn’t want their monthly selection.
When I was at Polytechnic in the distant past there was a discount record store in Sheffield that sold albums that all had a hole punched in the corner of the album cover. Presumably some sort of remaindered mark.
Anyhow an LP for 99p is not to be sniffed at. Many bought because iiked the album cover.
Just as I started working full time I was visiting my parents and we went off to buy some obscure part for something my dad was trying to fix. We parked outside a record store that was closing down and I had a shiny new credit card…oops.
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Untill today I would not have it otherwise. Exploring music always was an active part in my life. In my opinion sitting on my butt and waiting for some smart software or streaming service to play something I might like has not much to do with exploring at all. For me that takes out all the fun. It’s more like listening to radio, which is not something I pay much attention to.
Same goes for my collection, be it digital or analoge. I just love the idea of my own personal collection which I own. I am not into “renting” music.
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Now your showing your age, they have not been classed as those for many many years,
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I did say it was the distant past 
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You must remember The Leadmill then?
A legendary place 
Yes in it’s early stages.
Aged 20 I drank like an old fogey and was only drinking mild. Had to go to the Norfolk arms next door, in the snug, to get it. 
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I used to enjoy a pint or two of mild and bizarrely a pint of half and half, with mild and bitter! Later my favourite bar maid gave me a pint of “Chinese”, which I think was mild and lager, I wasn’t totally convinced!
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