I made a thing for this https://dailyalbum.art/

12 random albums every day, picked from a list of curated lists that I've curated over the years; some of which are pitchfork lists

I'm an active Spotify user, with increasing tendencies to find a more sustainable alternative, but the inertia is real

Exactly this. There were even curated collections on Oink/what.cd of these lists which is where I obtained a large portion of my collection. Those days were the end of the era for me. I still had access to an FTP-ish site that was an offshoot of Something Awful Forums but that decayed probably 10-12 years ago.

I still have a turntable/cd-changer in my living room which is used monthly at least, but it is mostly a social thing (kids, friends etc). For mobile digital, I had been using Subsonic and subsequent forks since 2010 but self-hosting is too much work with real work and life taking a front seat, still have iSub on my phone with around 4k songs cached which is all I listen to in the car, no paid streaming services at all for over 2 years now. There is a 5k song limit for my car but the plan is to dump my whole collection into multiple USB sticks and rotate as I see fit.

I'm constantly reminded of those past days when certain songs roll through of my youth (90's, 2000's) and the who, when and where of it all. I also get to pass it on to my kids as they discover this musical past in real-time next to me which makes it even sweeter.

These deep dives are fun, but it’s a lot more fun to have a conversation with someone about this sort of deep dive, get to know their taste and trust their next rec is probably going to be good.

I miss the community around music sites more than the content. Curation and passion was top notch and fun. Nobody was angling for ad dollars or revenue. They just did it to build the community.