Sounds weird, but I let it find me. That's just the only way that music has ever worked for me. Many, many times I've searched, scoured the net, and found bands or genres that seem perfect for me, on paper they seem like they're exactly what I want, and I try so hard to force them to click and be the next phase in my music saga. But that has never worked, not even a single time. I always end up just putting that music away and never going back to it. The only favorites I ever found through the internet were Immortal Technique & Paramore, which is a little strange since I've been going on music sites daily since I was 11!
I'm usually a practical, skeptical person but music is like a spiritual thing for me, I let it find me. I can be at a party at 4am and they'll put on some strange song to try and clear the house (that's how I found Pantera), or at a gas station at midnight and the clerk's playing some crazy-ass folk music (how I found Ani Difranco), or I check out a band to try and impress a girl (Neutral Milk Hotel, Garth Brooks), or what the kid next to me in Science class is listening to (Alice in Chains), or in a department store, it can happen anywhere. The stars just have to align and something falls into my lap that really connects with me. 'Course, the bulk of my favorites are the classic rock artists, who I heard throughout my youth from my dad and brothers.