Andy's Blog

I’ve just subscribed to last.fm, and am happily sharing my esoteric choice in music with whoever can be bothered to browse my shiney new profile to see what I’ve been listening to… and maybe even currently listening to!

Now whilst being an open embracer of the “social network”, and admittedly connecting all my music playing devices to last.fm; such as MixZing on my android phones and exaile on my linux desktop, the decision was a little more practical than just boring the t’interweb with yet more information on me.

For the past six months I’ve been downloading at least 2-3 new albums per month from Amazon, preferably from artists I haven’t heard of before, or at listened to in any great degree.  Why?  Well most of the music I’ve been blown away by recently has all been blindly stumbled across.  Bands such as Archive and The Goo Goo Dolls.  However recently the “misses” are starting to outnumber the “hits” in this admittedly haphazard way of choosing music.

Enter Last.fm and its ability to look at what I am currently listening to and, from analysing what other people with similar tastes are listening to, come up with recommendations on what I may also like.  This is what social networking should be all about and really starts to be “social”.

…and the results so far? Admittedly it’s only day 1, but I have found two bands I hadn’t heard of before and am currently wearing the proverbial needle down listening to ‘em; Matchbox Twenty and Rob Thomas.

Being the sociable animal that I am, you can now see what I’m listening to by looking at the shiny new column on the right, under the “Listening to..” heading.

See, you can find more on the series of tubes than LOLCats and porn!