I've been programming non-stop for the last few weeks trying to complete a big project. Music helps me think while I'm trapped in front of a computer screen and scratching my brain for creative methods to make X append to Y in database Z. With the right tunes I can approach a programming zen where solutions and the methods to execute them flow as fast as I can type. It's sorta like seeing beyond the matrix, bending the spoon and dodging bullets. Only in my world the matrix is a shopping cart application, the spoon is my sanity and the bullets are my boss.
So the music plays on as my fingers endlessly engage the keyboard. Yet even with a library of 7000+ songs, my music was starting to get stale. Enter the free online music radio, Last.fm.
Last.fm is one part website, one part application and one part online radio station. The application will track what music you are currently listening to in iTunes (Winamp, Windows Media Player, etc) or on the Last.fm player. Each time you play a track, Last.fm will automatically scrobble it to your library on their servers. Once you have logged enough scrobbles in your library, Last.fm can start comparing your musical tastes to the millions of other users on the site. You can also login to the Last.fm website and manually add artists, albums and songs to your library.
Eventually you will be able to start listening to the My Recommendations and My Neighborhood stations through the Last.fm player. My Recommendations will serve you music based on what you like to listen as scrobbled into your library (similar artists and genres), while My Neighborhood will stream music based on what other users with similar tastes are listening to.
A month of using Last.fm has turned me on to dozens of new artists, songs and albums that I liked enough to downloa...er, purchase legally with real money. It has even managed to renew my interest in known bands via tracks I've never heard or forgotten about.
I've reached a point where I can almost exclusively listen to the Last.fm radio instead of my own library. Even if it doesn't serve up music I am crazy about, it knows my tastes well enough that any tracks played are at least very tolerable. Occasionally the player algorithms will hiccup and spout you ear poison in the form of Don Henley (or some other artist you probably can't tolerate). Yet for every Don Henley track there are a thousand plays of other enjoyable tunes.
The only drawback to Last.fm is that some artists have a very limited catalog selection. So while you can scrobble any tracks out of your library, the Last.fm player is only authorized to play back certain tracks. They typically have all singles by the artists, and many have their full catalog available. However there are some artists with a very limited selection, and if they rank high in your library, you will be hearing the same tracks from them over and over again.
Finally Last.fm has a great API suite that allows users to tap into their listening data, charts and trends. I used the API to generate the word cloud for this image based on my top artists for the month.
Here is my Last.fm user page.
