It also feels like these things are making me more musically illiterate.
You see enough Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Imaginal Discs and the twenty yearly Trhä albums as super highly praised and something every music nerd should listen to, and forget what kind of music most people actually like... which if you go by the spotify charts, is a lot of slop! And if you go by the radio, it's mostly the same stuff since 1995.
rateyourmusic is pretty obnoxious, but the website is useful for its genre database, which is both useful and fun to look through, while undoubtedly surface-level when it comes to most non-western music styles, I don't think there's any other place where you can find as much music categorized in as much detail.
other good (probably better) ways to find music is good radio stations (NTS is a good one) or by looking through label catalogues, like check what labels your favorite artists are on and find what else they released (only possible on smaller labels that actually have an ethos). reissue labels are great too (just search like "best new reissues 2024" to find some good ones)
You can also find rare legitimately interesting user curated lists with some kind of stated perspective.
Idk a better method than getting lucky with checking what lists your favourite albums are on, but I did find a gem titled something like "The First String" for stuff with interesting focus on guitar, which ranged from American Primitivism, noise improv, to Surf Rock from Egypt.