17 year old me had no idea what I was getting into. It was the best and worst project I've ever worked on.
A lot of respect to the guys and girls still working on Last and I'm very excited to see where it goes from here.
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17 year old me had no idea what I was getting into. It was the best and worst project I've ever worked on.
A lot of respect to the guys and girls still working on Last and I'm very excited to see where it goes from here.
may it live a long life
Man i love last.fm even though it's been technically superseded (for most people) by Spotify's recommendation features. It just fit so well in the zeitgeist of 2000's indie scene, microblogs, early social media.
I don't think the recommendation engines behind Spotify, Youtube Music, etc compare to the recommendations I got from last.fm over the years. The algorithmic ones seem to have a bunch of issues that bug me as a long time music listener and someone with a large music library. - their memory is short as hell so you can listen to something for a while, stop and then it'll suggest it to you later as something to "discove…
Like if I start listening to house music, it will just recommend 100 songs that have organ 2 [0], even though house music is more diverse than that. Then it forces me to thumbs down the music, which also isn't what I want to do, because I have no idea what effect it's having on my recommendations. Is it just going to stop recommending house music altogether? Is it going to stop recommending songs with organ 2? Is it smart enough to understand that I just want less and not none? I do like organ 2, I just don't want to drown in it when I'm trying to find new music.
Or I will thumbs up a phonk song and it it just floods me with phonk remixes of pop songs.
Last.fm, on the other hand, seemed to have some way of towing a line of different enough without going too far. Both YTM and Spotify algos just do cookiecutter similarity.
Man i love last.fm even though it's been technically superseded (for most people) by Spotify's recommendation features. It just fit so well in the zeitgeist of 2000's indie scene, microblogs, early social media.
I don't think the recommendation engines behind Spotify, Youtube Music, etc compare to the recommendations I got from last.fm over the years. The algorithmic ones seem to have a bunch of issues that bug me as a long time music listener and someone with a large music library. - their memory is short as hell so you can listen to something for a while, stop and then it'll suggest it to you later as something to "discove…
I tried to import my music life into Google Music, uploading my lifetime of libraries there. When they wound that down I just lost trust in online services and now do it through Nextcloud, which honestly is pretty awesome imo. There's no algorithmic suggestion for better or worse, but none of the "who ordered that" style assumptions imposed on you by the system like those you outlined above.
It has been maybe a decade since I met someone who actually uses the service.
Is anyone using last.fm in 2026? This made sense when people were playing MP3s in their Windows Media Player or Winamp, but as 99% of the people just stream music now, what is the purpose of this service? It has been maybe a decade since I met someone who actually uses the service.
Man i love last.fm even though it's been technically superseded (for most people) by Spotify's recommendation features. It just fit so well in the zeitgeist of 2000's indie scene, microblogs, early social media.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think the recommendation engines behind Spotify, Youtube Music, etc compare to the recommendations I got from last.fm over the years. The algorithmic ones seem to have a bunch of issues that bug me as a long time music listener and someone with a large music library. - their memory is short as hell so you can listen to something for a while, stop and then it'll suggest it to you later as something to "discove…
Cannot call lastfm algorithm advanced in any sense. Just opened Amon Tobin page: "similar artists: Kid Koala and DJ Kush", which is an impressively shallow understanding of the last 20 (!!) years of his life, and this happened with almost every artist on the platform, because the average sum of tastes of every listener does not exist in reality. E.g. in the case of Amon Tobin, Kid Koala is the average of similarities…
Is anyone using last.fm in 2026? This made sense when people were playing MP3s in their Windows Media Player or Winamp, but as 99% of the people just stream music now, what is the purpose of this service? It has been maybe a decade since I met someone who actually uses the service.