I usually go in reverse, getting album recs via Rate Your Music to start and then before or during the first listen to a work of theirs, I'll read some literature on the project (be it band history for poppier stuff or musical history contextualization for older performers or conceptual info for artier pieces) and whatever pops out that sounds interesting might get checked out. Usually I need to be super impressed to really dig deeper with artists than the two or three albums of theirs I get indirectly recommended by my friends on RYM the first time around, but I'll usually make it back around to full discogs for anything I rate highly.
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