Last night, I spent some time listening to Last Fm on the family XBOX360. It is hooked up to the home theater so we are getting the best audio available. Last FM uses a process it calls "scrobbling" to build up a detailed profile of your listening preferences. Everything you listen to on the computer, on Facebook, on your Ipod, through music websites like Rhapsody and Spotify can be tracked. It builds up a detailed chart of your listening as well as all the listeners in the Last Fm community. Using those preferences it gives you access to radio stations based on what you like. Like Pandora, you can like or dislike a track and it remembers and treats that track appropriately when it shows up in the future. Unlike Pandora, you can select a lot of music directly. Mostly things that Last FM determines that you already own. The cons to Last FM are the tradeoffs that you make in sound quality that you have to some degree with all streaming sites. The sound quality is not as good as cd or vinyl. But it should improve as technology moves forward. And every artist is not available on demand. Generally the classic rock biggies, Beatles, Zep, et. al.
What do the Last FM charts tell us? Top played artist for the last week is Coldplay who have a new album out. Top track (and quite possibly my song of the year) is Adele's "Rolling In The Deep!"
I grew up loving the Billboard Charts. Having Last FM is like having a Billboard chart of what you like and listen to. My top artist for the year is The Beatles (no surprise). Top track for the year is Love's "Alone Again Or" from their classic "Forever Changes" album.
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