[mike_mg]

For modern music, the definitive resource (in my experience) is RYM: https://rateyourmusic.com/. It has several advantages: 1) extremely broad coverage - it is almost "list of all music ever" 2) the community has rated all of this music and "has good taste" 3) nice sorting and search capability

How to use: a) For overview of most important albums which is at the same time a reasonable overview of modern music history, use the default sorting https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart b) after you get into specific sub-genre's, use the sorting. For example, you discover you like Japanese 90s city-pop? Here's the query for you https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?page=1&chart_type=top&... c) for music discovery, browse recommendation lists of people there. It is a true gold-mine of great music

For completness, to rollingstone.com and npr, I add pitchfork.com which is arguably the most important "independent" medium

[adamors]

Seconding RYM, imo the best place to find music worth listening if you don't have time to go through everything. The community is also very good in curating lists for various tastes.