my name is mwd

Continuing the series of articles whereby I catch up with the amazing things the rest of the world already knew about, I’ve just discovered the joy that is last.fm.

Recently I’d been getting frustrated with the lack of new music I was finding. I don’t tend to listen to music radio much – mostly I listen to a combination of Radio 4 and tech podcasts over breakfast and my commute – and my usual mix of fresh Portland sounds comes but once a year, and this year I think is a bit late. So how do I find out about new music and bands?

Thankfully our friend the Internet has a solution.

Last.fm is a service whereby you tell it what bands you like, and it’ll build you two Internet radio stations just for you: one made of bands you like, so you can listen to tunes by your existing favourite artists; and another made of recommended bands based on what you said you liked. Thus your computer becomes a great source of new music.

Last.fm on a computer is good, but what makes it insanely great is having 3G connectivity and a mobile phone client. I have the last.fm client on my iPhone which lets me listen to my last.fm stations whilst on the move. Yesterday morning I did a little work in a cafe listening to new cool bands being streamed to my phone. Unbelievably amazing stuff.

Last.fm isn’t perfect, for example they like to make up words which is initially a little confusing, and the website interface isn’t the best in the world, and the audio quality isn’t as good as a CD. But if you think of it as a very personal radio station, and the fact that I’ve already found a bunch of new bands to rekindle my music excitement then it’s well worth checking out.