Well there are the "similar" artists, shown on artist pages, and then there are your actual recommendations, shown from the home page. The "similar" artists you see on an artist page are just artists that other people who listen to said artist also happen to listen to. That's the only connection...they're the top artists also listened to by fans of the artist whose profile you're looking at. Kind of silly, really. If you go to http://www.last.fm/home you will actually see your recommendations (skip the new release crap). I generally find them pretty good, even if it often recommends artists I'm already familiar with but just haven't listened to. And how would it know that I already know of them, really, if I haven't listened to them? Doesn't make it any less accurate IMO.

Pandora does a pretty good job and you can approve or disapprove of things which will allow it to adjust more and more to what you want.

Yeah but that implies actually listening to Pandora radio. Not getting recommendations based on music/albums you listen to on your own.

Hm... i mean... I don't see a huge difference because with last.fm you listen to your itunes and then it recommends things to you and then you listen to those things. In pandora you put in a band that you normally listen to and then it plays the bands it recommends right then and there for you and you can say, no i don't like this, and it will refine it's choices. I think it's just a different way of doing basically the same thing and depends on if you feel like being more passive or proactive in the actual choosing of which recommendations you want to listen to.
It's nice that you have the ability to tell pandora what recommendations you like and don't like.

Kind of comes down to whether you feel like listen to the "radio" at the time or not, I suppose, and if you want immediate recommendations, or if (like me) you prefer to go about your business listening to albums and get recommendations you can investigate on your own when time permits.

I've discovered heaps of bands through MB. Thats the main reason I joined, because i'll admit im a music n00b and want to know more.

Last.fm is really good too, if i've discovered one band i really like and want to find similar bands.

I have this one other friend who loves discovering music as much as I do so we constantly share music.

When I like a band, I check out it's influences, and contemporaries. Randomly sifting through the internet and randomly taking suggestions.

I expose myself to the widest variety possible, and stick with what I like most.

I never EVER let the music media in any form effect me. I rarely read a music review unless I've already heard the album and made my judgment, and only out of curiosity.

Well mb is definitely a huge one for me. I've discovered so much of the music I love thanks to you guys :) Other than that, I hit up blogs, usually I'll search for an album and then end up looking through it. If there's a lot of good stuff I'll watch. Occassionally someone else that actually knows something about music will suggest an album to me. I love The Big Takeover, that's about the extent of my music media interaction. It's one of the few magazines not affected by all of this pitchfork hype too much. Pitchfork can be useful for news and I'll look at reviews once in a while but honestly 90% of the time they don't even really say anything worth reading about the music, it's just a number someone else attached to an album.

pretty much.

Usually last.fm, metal-archives.com, and Ishkur's electronic music guide is where I go.