Last.fm

When it comes to updates; when it rains, it pours.

As an extension of my post on myspace (which was mostly written a month ago btw, I just bothered to finish it and post it tonight) I wanted to write about one of my favorite sites/applications: last.fm*.

Last.fm basically is a service that tracks what music you listen to. You install a plug in for iTunes or Windows Media Player or Winamp or whatever, and it sends the tracks you listen to, to a central server.

I sounds like a big invasion of privacy…and it is. But I really don’t care if other people can track my music listening habits. I like the fact that I can track my own music.

Here are my top 10 artists since I’ve began tracking my music with last.fm:


1 Philip Glass 2391
2 Regina Spektor 1050
3 Fiona Apple 730
4 Queen 703
5 Mitch Hedberg 497
6 The Langley Schools Music Project 477
7 Olivia Newton-John 343
8 Aimee Mann 332
9 The Like 304
10 Liz Phair 297


I have no beef with the list other than you can really skew results if you put your player on repeat and leave the house. Example: I own a total of two songs by Damien Rice, yet he is ranked #13 on my list. Reason? When I downloaded them, I put them in a rotation and left the house for the weekend. Next thing you know I’m the biggest Damien Rice fan in the goddamn world. Pretty much the same for Olivia Newton John. She’s good, but….

You can also get pre-made or data feeds for your website. I have a list of my 5 more recently played songs in the right hand column of my site (feeddigest sucks BTW). You can also just paste an image like this:

I think this sort of stuff is what the internet was made for because its a really simple way to find out what people you know are listening to and a really easy way to discover new music. Get it. Install it. Its fun.

*Note: the .fm domain name is for the Federated States of Micronesia. On my trip, I’m going to do a piece on small nation domain names. .tv, .fm, .tk, etc. Just for shits, I want to see if I could register microsoft, google, or some other big trademark under a small nation top level domain name.