LAST FM

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Because I have been working at home today I have been absolutely CANING last.fm (under my cunning disguise of freakytrigger), obsessively hitting REFRESH on the 'dashboard' so's I can taste-stalk my 'friends'. Unsurprisingly since the heart of LFM is big graphs of stuff I am a monster nerd for it, however not as much as some who have multiple accounts enabled for multiple genres wtf wtf.

So my question is - if you have it, do you find it affects how you listen, do you keep one eye on the minute hand when a shite track is playing, are you afeard to leave the itunes on "random", does it recommend you good stuff, do you think your charts are an accurate representation of you or not, are you the kind of MENTALIST who would choose to play one thing rather than another simply because you want it to be higher on your charts (btw I AM THIS PERSON :(:(:(:(_)

And if you don't have it is this any kind of principled decision?

And what do the top tracks/artists say about the Internet Nation???

JUST TALK ABOUT IT BASICALLY

(I have found myself thinking incidentally that a better way to do CANONS wd be to pick the top 30 all time tracks on Last FM)

Comments

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

I find that I don't pay attention to it, and occasionally I leave Winamp going when I leave the room so it thinks I listened to something 6700 times, which I didn't really.

My charts are not an accurate representation of who I am. Absolutely, not even remotely close.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

If not at least for the reason that I suspect the vast majority of peoples music collection isn't on ver computer!

warning: i have just started a cup of very strong coffee and may well talk and talk and talk

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

IE if I like it enough to have it on cd then I will listen to it on a stereo with decent sound apart from rub old computer speakers.

I generally put stuff on random anyway - I suppose all it picks up with me is particular one-off favourites. IE when I have to listen to King Kong Song five times before I stop wanting to sing along to the deep doo-wop backing bits, or when I have to listen to MUCHACHO DE LOS OJOS TRISTE and recline on bed like melancholy senorita in a siesta.

Re: warning: i have just started a cup of very strong coffee and may well talk and talk and talk

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I've plugged my computer into my proper speakers now (don't really have a CD player to speak of) - though yes, having to import something when I want to listen to it = choosing to listen to something else instead.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

This is true but theoretically it shouldnt make a difference, if what IS on the computer is representative of the kind of stuff someone listens to. (And if it isn't, then the qn "why not" is even more interesting I guess)

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

It's certainly not representative in my case. I haven't got an iPod, and don't use slsk, which means that nearly all of the stuff on my computer is downloads from you lot. Which is obv heavily biased towards new stuff that is fairly poppy, in one way or another. You'd never guess from my Winamp stats that over the last fortnight I've been listening to Shudder To Think and Band Of Susans almost as much as everyone else put together.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was trying to phrase something about people whose 'computer content' mainly comes from 'tastemakers' (I mean that in the sense of provenance from people of a similar sort of musical mindset before anyone opens up any tins of worms).

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The thing is, looking at the people on LFM whose music tastes I think I know fairly well, I can almost always recognise my idea of their tastes in what they've been playing, even if a specific band or song isn't represented much. Maybe that's what I mean by 'representative'.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Hmm I think perhaps a little - but in the overall 'consumption' it's a representation within a very small slice of pie so I don't really know if you can glean so much from that as you're thinking... I mean you're basing stuff on things that have been played three times as opposed to once and it's a bit micro...

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think the sample size of total plays needs to get quite large for that to work. What I mean is, looking at yr profile, say, it would be a fools errand to go "OH her favourite bands are ABBA, Dexy's, and Dizzee Rascal" (tho Dexy's is surely one of them), but even from yours you could say "right, bit of nindie but with a jangly/80s bent, pop both classic and modern tending to novelties", which wouldn't be a totally unfair thing to surmise! (I reckons)

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

The thing is there are huges differences in the way I listen to all of those - Abba = I have a huge pool of Abba songs and dip into them fairly at random, Dexys was one of the rare instances I put on an album because I was ripping it in order to put it on the mp3 player, and I only have like two Dizzee mp3s!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yes this is what I'm saying - it's meaningless for making assumptions about individual bands (mostly - you could work out for instance that braisedbywolves likes the Mountain Goats a lot) and you can't deduce attitudinal data from usage data, but in terms of broad tastes I think it does a fairly good job - the sticking point is that iscrobbler is rub and so mobile music (which *is* likely to be quite different for many people) doesn't get represented.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Also, if I'm in front of my computer I am likely to be programming, which has v.diff functional requirements music-wise than e.g. commuting.

[umlauts.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Also some musics I don't consume at my computer even though it's on it. Some music is for the portable player, innit.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I reckon most people's musical preferences change according to where they are and what they are doing. And even for your average member of poptimists, sitting in front of the computer bvggering around on the internet doesn't constitute the majority of their listening time.