Friends with dissimilar tastes do it for me.

I've learned a great deal about bands I don't care about through a good friend (and the occasional ones I do care about).

Most of this is just repeating, but...
1. Always find out the influences of the music you like, chances are you'll like them too.

2. Use web radio sites like the aforementioned last.fm or pandora.com

3. Having friends with similar tastes always helps. Get more friends.

4. Musicbanter kicks ass.

5. Go to more concerts.

musicbanter. always the best way:

seeming as i've never even once had a single recommendation from a single person on these boards that i've ever actually liked, i just sniff around and see what other people are listening to, and then go off and listen to the complete opposite. it works a charm every time.

i listen to everything i see, and then i know what i like and what i don't like.

You obviously have'nt been paying enough attention to my threads then :D

I listen to new music often based on recommendations on Last.fm.

I'm also fairly easy to impress in terms of music.

Maybe I haven't spent enough time on last.fm, but every time I'm on there 99% of the recommendations it gives me are bands I already listen to.

You can remove recommendations, which will in turn, give you more.

Most of the time I look for reviews, whether they be from magazines or online. Sometimes I find music by accident (amv's and video's reccomended on youtube). Coincidentally this is how I've found some of my favorite bands.

The first step for me is to find something I think would interest me on allmusic and go by their ratings - they're not always right by any means (Diamond Dogs 2.5/5, what the fuck?!), but they're good to get an initial idea of which albums you should be looking for.

From there it's a question of finding the album I want on a blog, and then checking back to allmusic and having a gander at their 'similar artists' section. All a good laugh really.