ben robison

Last.fm - The Social Music Revolution

I like to have control of my life, even the little things. That also comes down to the music that I listen to, which explains why I’ve been listening to my mp3 collection instead of the radio for over 10 years now. For that reason, I never got into last.fm because I thought it was just another internet radio station with the social network thrown in. I was wrong.

What I found out today is that there is actually a last.fm client you can download which will scrobble all the music you listen to. Scrobbling is the process of listening to your music and having it automatically report back to last.fm. It works with iTunes and there’s now experimental support for the iPod (which I assume means that what I do on my iPod can also be reported back to last.fm.

That means that the things I listen to anywhere I go are now reportable back to last.fm. Now I can finally find out who my favorite artist is.

I was not surprised to find out that Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Green Day, Live, & Dave Matthews are all in my top 10 I’ve been listening to them for years and have quite the collection (not a big fan of Green Day’s early stuff, but the later is quite good). What I did think was very interesting is that The Shins showed up in my top 25.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the Shins, but my little sister introduced me to them a month or so ago, and I’ve been listening to them so much that they’re already competing with bands I’ve been listening to for years. My wife was less than impressed with me telling here that I could now analyze my listening habits like a true analyst. What can I say, I’m an analyst at heart. Maybe that goes back to the part about loving control =)