It's fascinating to watch trends emerge as the system builds up a decent database of your listening habits.
The only quibble I have with Last.fm - which, in fairness, isn't their fault at all but is simply a consequence of the method they're using to collect details of what we play - is that it presents a distinctly skewed representation of my musical tastes, because as someone who only switched to CD-buying relatively late in the day (1991) I have a good decade and more of music in analogue form that Last.fm knows nothing about. Kate Bush, Prince (and the Revolution) and the Pet Shop Boys would be much higher on my chart if I'd only go to the trouble of digitising my audio tapes.
Almost all the music I own is on my pc now, so I don't have that issue -- but I do listen to everything on random, so I'm not sure what it'll actually say about me.
I have to admit that when I first signed up to Audioscrobbler I deliberately listened in shuffle mode for the next week, the better to give the system a sample of what I like. I think that by the time Last.fm has seen 1,000 tracks from you it should have a fair idea of what you like: certainly the list of recommendations it came up with didn't change all that much after that point. At any rate, that was the case until the recent name change for the service; they seem to be using a slightly different algorithm now, judging by the different scores they calculate for my 'neighbours.' I look down the list of recommendations and I mostly think either "I've got that, but on tape" or "You must be kidding!"
3 comments:
It's fascinating to watch trends emerge as the system builds up a decent database of your listening habits.
The only quibble I have with Last.fm - which, in fairness, isn't their fault at all but is simply a consequence of the method they're using to collect details of what we play - is that it presents a distinctly skewed representation of my musical tastes, because as someone who only switched to CD-buying relatively late in the day (1991) I have a good decade and more of music in analogue form that Last.fm knows nothing about. Kate Bush, Prince (and the Revolution) and the Pet Shop Boys would be much higher on my chart if I'd only go to the trouble of digitising my audio tapes.
Almost all the music I own is on my pc now, so I don't have that issue -- but I do listen to everything on random, so I'm not sure what it'll actually say about me.
I have to admit that when I first signed up to Audioscrobbler I deliberately listened in shuffle mode for the next week, the better to give the system a sample of what I like. I think that by the time Last.fm has seen 1,000 tracks from you it should have a fair idea of what you like: certainly the list of recommendations it came up with didn't change all that much after that point. At any rate, that was the case until the recent name change for the service; they seem to be using a slightly different algorithm now, judging by the different scores they calculate for my 'neighbours.' I look down the list of recommendations and I mostly think either "I've got that, but on tape" or "You must be kidding!"
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