Audioscrobbler and Last.FM

I briefly mentioned Audioscrobbler in passing last year here, but I don't think I ever really explained what it is, how rediculously cool it is, and why you should be using it.

First off, Audioscrobbler is essentially a statistics site. You install a plugin for the mp3-playing software of your choice (Winamp, iTunes, XMMS, Windows Media Player, whatever) and the silent plugin sits in the the background and reports back to Audioscrobbler every song you listen to.

"Big deal" you say? Well, some people don't care. Some say "I already know what I listen to a lot of, so why do I need a website keeping track?" Simply put, you don't. But to me, it's neat to let the plugins do their thing and look and be able to quickly see things like what artist I listened to most last week, what my 5th most-played song this year is, and other random things like that.

Look at my profile page at Audioscrobbler. I reset the stats earlier this year, and since then you can tell I've been on a kick of listening to The Faint.

One of the cooler things I have yet to mention is Audioscrobbler's sister site, Last.FM. If you have an account at Audioscrobbler, you have an account at Last.FM. And this is the cool part: the two sites work together in a manner I didn't realize till recently. Audioscrobbler tracks your song plays and builds what they call a "listening profile". Last.FM is a site the specializes in streaming internet radio - and the coolest thing is that each user has a Personal station that essentially plays just music from their profile (and similar songs by artists in your profile).

For example, here's the last 12 songs played on my personal station on Last.FM:

1. Evanescence - Bring Me to Life
2. Counting Crows - Saint Robinson and His Cadillac Dream
3. 10cc - Dreadlock Holiday
4. Cursive - Butcher the Song
5. The Decemberists - Los Angeles, I'm Yours
6. AFI - This Celluloid Dream
7. Ben Folds Five - Cigarette
8. Jay-Z - Dirt Off Your Shoulder
9. Weezer - The World has turned and left me here
10. Elliott Smith - Stupidity Tries
11. Kanye West - The New Workout Plan
12. Bad Religion - God Song

Anybody who knows me would know that to me, that's a dynamite lineup of songs. In fact, I was absolutely blown away by the fact that the first song Last.FM ever played for me was "God Song", which is possibly my favorite Bad Religion song ever.

So give it a shot if you're interested. It's all free, and the Last.FM tie-ins are really cool if you can listen to the radio at work.