Now before you start sending angry emails, don’t get me wrong. I love Pandora. I’ve been using it since the beginning, and have rode along through all it’s trials and tribulations. A music genome project? Awesome! There was a time when my hard drive with all my music on it was out of commission, and with my stations on Pandora, it felt like I was listening to my own library, almost creepily at times!
But I’ve also been using something else for a long time. It used to be called iScrobbler, and what drew me to it was that it would keep track of what I listened to in iTunes, allow me to check my own personal charts, and then recommend things to me based on my musical preferences. Somewhere along the way, that idea developed into what we have today as Last.fm.
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Here’s what I’ve been listening to lately.
The charts are still there, but the site has expanded incredibly to not only let you know when bands you like are coming to town, but to let you know what’s new, what you’re likely to like, and, my favorite, what your friends are listening to. For the last 3 days I’ve been listening to my friends’ “stations” and it’s been awesome. With the desktop app, you simply double-click your friend’s name, and it starts to stream music from their charts. You can also listen to music from what they call “neighbors”, people who have tastes similar to yours, as well as a “recommendations” stream which has already introduced me to some music I never would have found otherwise.
Pandora is great, and it definitely still has its place, but if I were trapped on a desert island with a laptop, internet, and solar power, last.fm would be my iTunes replacement of choice.
Check out last.fm here.
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