If you only listen to a couple hundred songs you are missing out / need a better method for finding music. I have a similar process to your for finding music except i rely on my Discover Weekly to bring me the songs in a way that makes sense (e.g. it gives me dark folk one week and then bubblegum punk the next). It used to have about a 33%-66% match rate, but now it is closer to 100% so providing almost 1500 great songs a year, pre sorted by genre/mood/feel.

No matter how quick you are at scanning through new music it isn't going to be as efficient as Discover Weekly.

If you are looking to reduce your time listening to twats:

> am i rage

Lot of bands have been inspired be the Smiths and, imo, improved upon their sound. Also none of the bands on that playlist are fronted by twats (as far as I know).

Are you into metal? If so:

> Liquid Metal

Which so far consists of 11 Metal/Hard Rock albums in the range of: thrash, doom, math, ambient, occult, hardcore punk, experimental, sludge, alt, and progressive.

If you are into indie:

> Take 5

Which is 5 hours of underground multi genre indie that gets updated regularly.

And if you want a good midway jumping off point for more mainstream pop/indie:

> realparty

which is music you might listen to at a cool party in 2013.

Then you are not listening to very cogent lyrical music. I'll admit the lyrics are not always the first thing I notice and sometimes I'll be listening to a song regularly for months or even years before I notice words that flip the meaning of the song in its head, but i generally find weak lyrics almost always belie a weak song.

Additionally being raised on classical music is not necessarily a good way to be raised on music as it's a very limited genre that has not progressed for 200 years. 95% of the greatest classical musical was written before 1827, and music since evolved to things like Opera and folk (Beethoven's late strings were his attempt to move music passed the classical era). Post 1827 classical music generally is concerned with technical arrangements that while being impressively difficult to play, have limited emotional range. In some ways very similar to much metal music, which often claims late romantic era composers as influences. Camille Saint Saens advocated for as much at the time, though he was actually a bit of an exception since he at listed acknowledged the lack of classical musical direction following the death of its final great composer.

Out of curiosity do you listen to a lot of metal? I notice that genre generally tends to have weak lyrics and instead stresses more technically proficient rhythms and emotive singing (not to say that technical proficiency or strong vocal range is particularly a marker of musical interest, innovation, or maturity).

Personally, i think lyric ambivalence is a terrible way to engage with music. In fact, with most lyrical songs generally the words are written first as the words convey the meaning and tone of the song. Otherwise you risk ending up with "Scrambled Eggs" sung over a beautiful melody like "Yesterday".