December 2008 Archives
In a sometimes noisy office, I'm always looking for ways to drown out the outside world. Usually this means an ipod or maybe streaming my music from home via Squeezecenter. But with either of those I always tend to listen to the same old music. A bit of opera to make me look xclever, and then just the same old 80s,90s and 00s music I always listen to.
Recently though I've discovered Last.FM, a British based website that lets you stream unlimited music tracks that suits your tastes - for FREE!. It's fantastic to be able to type in the name of an artist and then be able to listen to a personalised 'Station' of music from that artist and others like it. I think the system picks tracks based on other user's recommendations of similar artists and it works really well. Whenever I put in a favourite artist, the station I get contains at least another 5 or 10 artists that I love just as much.
I especially like the exploratory feel, with new artists constantly being offered to you without you having to search them out. Because they will be based on similar artists to the ones you like, there's a good chance you'll want to listen. If not, you can click 'skip' or even 'ban' tracks you don't want to hear again. If you like a new artists you can 'love' a track or add it to your playlist, making it easier to hear again in future. Genius.
You can also make use of 'Scrobbling' which is a way of letting your friends (and others) know what you're listening to. Usually this is done transparently without you having to do a thing. As you play your music, the last.fm website is updated with what you're listening to, giving others a chance to explore.
I also love the fact that it works across all types of devices. You can use your browser to listen with a Flash player, my Squeezecenter has a plugin for last.fm, it integrates with most music players like Songbird, iTunes, Amarok and Rhythmbox. There's also a standalone client for Windows, OSX and Unix which gives you quick and easy access to your own radio stations and the Love/Hate buttons. You can even install it on your iphone or Series 60 mobile phone (using a plugin called Mobbler). I know it's geeky, but being able to wander around listening to music on my Nokia N95 and know that other people can see what I'm listening to is just brilliant!
Anyway, I'm off to bed to listen to my last.fm 'sleep' station. If you do happen to stop by last.fm, my username is cleanthes. Feel free to say hello and listen in to some of my favourites.
I especially like the exploratory feel, with new artists constantly being offered to you without you having to search them out. Because they will be based on similar artists to the ones you like, there's a good chance you'll want to listen. If not, you can click 'skip' or even 'ban' tracks you don't want to hear again. If you like a new artists you can 'love' a track or add it to your playlist, making it easier to hear again in future. Genius.
You can also make use of 'Scrobbling' which is a way of letting your friends (and others) know what you're listening to. Usually this is done transparently without you having to do a thing. As you play your music, the last.fm website is updated with what you're listening to, giving others a chance to explore.
I also love the fact that it works across all types of devices. You can use your browser to listen with a Flash player, my Squeezecenter has a plugin for last.fm, it integrates with most music players like Songbird, iTunes, Amarok and Rhythmbox. There's also a standalone client for Windows, OSX and Unix which gives you quick and easy access to your own radio stations and the Love/Hate buttons. You can even install it on your iphone or Series 60 mobile phone (using a plugin called Mobbler). I know it's geeky, but being able to wander around listening to music on my Nokia N95 and know that other people can see what I'm listening to is just brilliant!
Anyway, I'm off to bed to listen to my last.fm 'sleep' station. If you do happen to stop by last.fm, my username is cleanthes. Feel free to say hello and listen in to some of my favourites.
