Last.fm

Thanks to mr. blackandwhite, I found this neat little music site called Last.fm. It's a huge online network where users can register for free and download the Last.fm tuner. On the tuner you can search for music by artist or tags, which cover pretty much anything, as they are user-created (i.e. "bloodshot records," "bluegrass," "twang," "music for dad,"). Pick a "station" based on the artist or tag and a song starts playing. You can recommend the song to others, tag it, ban it if it sucks or award it heart status if you love it. Keep clicking the next button and you'll cycle through endless songs related to your search, complete with the song's related tags, artist info, and similar artists, in essence creating a huge database of networked tunes to explore. I've only been using it for an hour or so and I've stumbled across a wide array of music - new, old, crappy, and solid.

There's also a feature called "scrobbling," in which the site takes a look at the music you listen to on your media player of choice (i.e. iTunes) and begins building a music profile for you. This scrobbling also takes into account the songs you listen to on the Last.fm radio service. Your profile is created from songs you own and listen to, as well as new stuff that you like.

The great thing is that you can explore a ton of music on their radio service for free. The bad news is that you must be a subscriber to be able to use key features of the site, like being able to play your Personal or Loved Tracks Radio, for example. However, at $3/mo., it seems like it might be worth it. I'm going to check it out and get back to you on this one.

Last, but certainly not least, you can create charts of the tunes you listen to and slap them on your blog, like the addition to my sidebar.

I *heart* the Internets.

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