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
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