I've used Spotify, Apple music, YT music and nothing beats SoundCloud stations for discovering new music based on a song.

and their "More of What you Like" playlists are just stations based on your recently most played songs and they just don't miss.

for someone like me that has songs from a lot of different genres in my regular rotation of 10-15 songs every month or so, it's perfect for discovering music.

Bandcamp is pretty good. They do writeups that I think are written by real people. When you look at a band you like, it tells you about stuff other people who like them have. I've found a lot of stuff there.

It is more about buying music than renting it, however. Most albums it will ask you to buy after a certain number of plays. I think the band can configure those details

I find last.fm's "similar artists" feature more accurate that Spotify's. But that's just for finding new stuff and tracking your history. Not really for actually playing the music. I linked it to Spotify and use them both together

Not that it’s any better in terms of ethics or artist pay, but YouTube Music has relatively decent auto playlist generation with settings for discovery. Plus you get ad-free YouTube without having to use piped or vanced or whatever people are using these days.

If you like modern rock, theres a free app (no ads or any bullshit either) or listen via website. Former radio DJ quit the industry and started his own online station. Im definately biased here as i used to listen to him all the time when i would drive all day long, but as its literally free and not supported by ads.

No account needed also

Anyways if you like modern rock whatwasthatradio.com

It is dedicated to only playing new music

He didnt like all the amazing music that exists to continue to go completely unnoticed by commercial radio so hes doing it himself

Hes supported by subscribers on patreon etc

If i remember correctly all songs are 36 months or newer

This is a proper SOCAN licensed service (canadian broadcasting license I think) so hes doing it proper.

www.whatwasthatradio.com

I personally have found at least a dozen new artists to listen to because of this free service

heres some of the bands he has done interviews with to give you an idea.

Search your favourite artists. Wiki them etc. and learn about them whilst simultaneously finding where they're members play in other bands or have other projects. Also, it can illuminate what they're influences were/are and you can listen to that too. I find a shit-tone of new music this way.

Deezer. Interface/UX is a little jank but it's private and discovery is good.

Radio Paradiso. Berlin based radio. Weird and wonderful.

I use Yandex Music for discovery. For some reason, I can't get Spotify to recommend the same amount of new stuff I like. You might need a proxy though because the content there is region-locked. Also I used both Yandex and Spotify for free, it's just fine on desktop with Ublock Origin.