Today is my one-year anniversary of being a Last.fm user!!! I was interested in using it back in 2005, but, alas, I did not have high speed then, and I put off getting an account until I did so (which was not until November of 2007), and in just one year of utilizing this fine site, I...
+ scrobbled 23,000+ tracks by 1,400+ artists; first track was
Gang of Four -
Not Great Men, I believe from choosing tag radio for
The Fall or
Television. I decided to put my songs on shuffle and see which one came up for the midnight posting and the track was was...
Can -
Halleluhwah
+ added 73 friends (4 that I had known personally beforehand, and many of which I have gotten to explore their music taste and general coolness through Shoutbox communication)
+ uploaded my instrumental music in March and continued to add more tracks throughout the months (
Marilyn Roxie), including a protest song against the Last.fm layout change in July
+ started a group (
Rimmel), gained leadership of a few pre-existing ones: (
basically, i just wanted my own group.,
Adam Green,
John Peel,
FreeMusic,
Shaman King), and joined a bunch of others.
+ discovered a myriad of glorious bands due to a result of recommendations from other users and friends who are on Last.fm (THANK YOU ALL! ! !), searching through artist connections in groups, member charts, tag radio, and automated recommendations, including:
Air,
American Death Ray,
Boards of Canada,
Blood Red Shoes,
The Chameleons,
Crystal Castles,
Dark Day,
Delia Derbyshire,
Lizzy Mercier Descloux,
Fad Gadget,
The Feelies,
Gang of Four,
Glass Candy,
Gong,
The Gun Club,
Ben Kweller,
Ladytron,
The Legendary Pink Dots,
Low,
Liquid Liquid,
Maximum Joy,
Mew,
Minus the Bear,
M.I.A.,
Mission of Burma,
Pink Industry,
Ratatat,
Santogold,
Scary Mansion,
Raymond Scott,
Sia,
Sigur Ros,
The Soft Boys,
Suicide,
Wire,
Zero 7
+ many of friends on Last.fm have their music uploaded to the site; very good stuff!!:
Cheap Mondays,
Maggot Brain,
Mt. Moon,
John Murphy Music,
Panda steps in chocolate,
Streetxlite,
Surukei,
Richard Sydney,
Tran Qual,
Voidfullness
+ customized my profile with some of the normal trappings, such as a quilt of most-listened to albums, sociomap, OMI pie chart (currently non-functioning, alas), Who's Amung Us counter, most recent acquisitions + music map widget from Rate Your Music:
http://rateyourmusic.com/~MarilynRoxie
Last.fm really prompted me to explore other areas of the internet for music recommendations, radio, and networking online. I also...
+ started a music blog, A Future in Noise, which I plan to utilize and promote more next year, as well as collaborate with those interested
+ got going on Robert Dimery's "1,001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die", starting at around 15-20% around April, now at 54% completion. Even though I may have heard of some of these before, I first really listened to and enjoyed their music as a result of trying to complete this list (I got the book, at last, a few days ago):
Big Black,
Nick Drake,
Faust,
Serge Gainsbourg,
Buddy Holly,
Killing Joke,
Magazine,
The Magnetic Fields,
John Martyn,
The Monks,
Penguin Cafe Orchestra,
Ananda Shankar,
The Slits,
The Sonics,
Tangerine Dream,
The Teardrop Explodes,
Tom Waits
+ signed up at MeeMix, Rate Your Music, got a MySpace Music profile, Livejournal, etc. and found these bands as a result of one or more of those sites, or from one of these reasons: watching a late-night tv show, an mp3 blog, or from a non-Last.fm person:
Archie Bronson Outfit,
Nicole Atkins,
John Cale,
Coconut Records[/artist, Leonard Cohen,
Coil,
Essential Logic,
Flying Color,
Ladytron,
Mark Lanegan,
Luxuria,
Midnight Movies,
thenewno2,
Nurse With Wound,
The Residents,
Talk Talk,
Wolfsheim,
YMCK
A few of things I didn't know, prior to signing up on Last.fm (other than the bands, etc.):
+ what
minimal synth was
+heck, what "scrobbling" referred to, for that matter
+ how much thousands of others and myself would cringe about a website's layout change
Many other important music-related events for me happened during this first year of being on Last.fm. I finally figured out how to use most of the functions on my Korg Triton LE Workstation, got a digital 8-track, and begrudgingly nailed down music theory / sheet music-reading concepts by taking a course on it, which turned out to not be as bad as I thought (though I still have to work through the
The Who and
The Doors sheet music books I got). I went to see
Adam Green w/
Tim Fite in concert, lamented the break-up of
Dirty Pretty Things, and saw
thenewno2 live over Stickam's webcam feature, even chatting with the band beforehand with a bunch of other fans!
I'm currently working through National Novel Writing Month, trying to catch up on books I haven't read and Japanese kanji, experimenting with photography, still playing video games now and again (only just recently did I pick up The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess!); I'll be plugging along with making my music, and hopefully will be teaching a History of Popular Music: pre-1950's - 2000s class at my former school next semester! :) Despite what people may have observed from current trends, this year has seemed to have a plethora of releases and singles from bands that I already liked, and some new artists releasing brilliant debut albums. I'm definitely curious about what 2009 will bring! Thanks Last.fm, friends, and artists for making this site a worthwhile place for music and community.
~Marilyn Roxie
Ananda Shankar
