I used Last.fm after I was told in another subject to register at different online offers.
Before that I worked for the radio station of Swinburne University (Swinburne, 2010) and put a weekly two hour program together, which recalled the history of independent pop-music. For the purpose of research I spent a lot of time on the Web to find out about the history of artists, labels, producers and composers. So, instead of going to one single spot claiming to have it all, I browsed around the web to find databases and websites dedicated to music and run by lovers of music.
The last place I would have thought of was something like Last.fm.
Why is that so? I have mixed experiences with Last.fm. The platform definitely helps members to find like minded people in terms of taste. But when it comes to servicing your taste and it’s a little off mainstream you realize they cannot deliver. E.g. when I ask for Red Lorry Yellow Lorry Radio, I expect to hear Red Lorry Yellow Lorry Tunes. Instead Last.fm delivers what they thing would be appropriate to fit in with the style of Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. As a result you end up with another genre mix that might randomly have one or the other track of the above band included.
A strong point of Last.fm is the ability to search for artists, who try to use Last.fm for their purposes and upload their tracks. It is a great way to explore unheard music.
Another strong point is the plug-in called Scrobbler that enables Last.fm users to upload their I-tunes track lists to Last.fm. This is a convenient way to enhances the library of music available to the user and also provides a greater variety of suggestions that might fit the listeners taste.
But coming back to my initial point I have to say that I hardly ever use Last.fm. My experience is that more and more music enthusiasts upload scarce videos from the beginning of the music video era, as well as recordings that never made it on the TV screen. To explore music artists, I found allmusic.com (Rovi Corporation, 2010) very helpful as it includes blogs and latest news, all without having to register or to login. Further there is Discogs (Zink Media, 2010) much more helpful and organized than last.fm, especially when seeking interesting music. Discogs is organized similar to Wikipedia. Although registration is mandatory to be able to participate in contributing and commenting, actually seeking the database for music released on any kind of media is straight forward.
I think the expectation for CMEs like Last.fm depends on the purpose of the user. I regard myself as a music collector and as such I like to browse for specialties. Nut if you want random selections made for you to fit some sort of mood, then Last.fm might be a great space for you.
References
Rovi Corporation (2010). Allmusic. Retrieved September 23rd, 2010 from: http://www.allmusic.com/
Swinburne University of Technology (2010). 3SSR. Retrieved September 23rd, 2010 from: http://3ssr.org/
Zink Media (2010). Discogs Music Database. Retrieved September 23rd, 2010 from: http://www.discogs.com/
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