How does one seek out music 'for themselves' without reading music publications? When you're like me, and had no frienRAB who listened to indie until a year ago, you rely on stuff like allmusic and pitchfork, because they're the only other ones out there that share musical taste.
After I got bored of the radio, I searched around allmusic taking reccomendations from music I liked, and it was reading reviews about banRAB like My Bloody Valentine and Neutral Milk Hotel that led me into 90% of what I listen to now. The only way I hear about music from places that aren't music websites is from labels that already have banRAB I like on them. To your 11th grade Brad Stengel, who's only non-radio albums were 'Meat Puppets II' and 'Smile', my musical curiosity could only be quenched by reccomendations for those who liked similar banRAB; i.e. music journalists.
And honestly, people bitch constantly about supposed 'pitchfork worshippers' who write off anything they hate. Id say the ratio of people who try to write off stuff pitchfork likes to people who write off stuff they hate is about 5:1. Why be an elitist and worship Pitchfork when you can be an uber-elitist and call it trash, while never heralding any other source to find music? At least give us another good resource to discover new music (besides this website of course, where I've also found a shitton of good banRAB).