Last.fm is now independent • Hacker News Board

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#91

Post by jamesbvaughan » Wed, May 27, 2026, 5:45 PM UTC

I hope this is a good change for last.fm! I love the service but it's been trickier to use since I switched from Spotify to Apple Music.

Does anyone have a setup they're happy with for scrobbling from Apple Music across different types of devices?

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#92

Post by caffeinewriter » Wed, May 27, 2026, 5:46 PM UTC

jamesbvaughan wrote: post #91

I hope this is a good change for last.fm! I love the service but it's been trickier to use since I switched from Spotify to Apple Music. Does anyone have a setup they're happy with for scrobbling from Apple Music across different types of devices?

On desktop devices, I'm using Cider.sh which supports scrobbling, and on Android I use Pano Scrobbler.

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#93

Post by input_sh » Wed, May 27, 2026, 5:55 PM UTC

NiloCK wrote: post #82

I'm mostly unfamiliar with the current offering of last.fm, but the name is familiar from way back. Glad to see something well-liked reclaim some independence. At a glance, they're providing an interface to YT sourced content with some value adds around tracking or categorizing listening. A quick question for users: can the site itself be configured as a listener without streaming / displaying the video? In general,…

You can toggle between YouTube and Spotify as the default playback provider.

Note that you do need to be a premium Spotify user for it to work. That's not needed for YouTube, so that explains why YouTube is the default.

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#94

Post by xmprt » Wed, May 27, 2026, 5:57 PM UTC

Arubis wrote: post #89

wldcordeiro wrote: post #42

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…

That's because the recommendation engine that Last.fm used back in the day was made the incredibly expensive way: the entire corpus was hand-tagged and cross-linked by humans atop an enormous CDDB. Last.fm, Audioscrobbler, and MusicBrainz (the association engine) were all linked together.

But Spotify has that as well. Tons of user curated playlists. And although user playback data is harder to parse through, it's also pretty straightforward to build some clustering algorithm where if you both like X then you might like Y as well.

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#95

Post by mlsu » Wed, May 27, 2026, 5:59 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #51

wldcordeiro wrote: post #42

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…

I'm 90% sure that music labels pay to "put their thumbs on the scales" with these recommendation algorithms in order to push their "hot" artists. I wonder how many of these problems are a result of that.

Every popular spotify playlist has a bunch of good songs and then like one or two "huh?" songs sprinkled in. It's really obvious what's going on.

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#96

Post by al_borland » Wed, May 27, 2026, 6:00 PM UTC

ale wrote: post #6

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’ve completely given up on recommendation engines from streaming services. It feels like they’re only good for creating background noise, not for helping me find music I actually want to listen to.

I’ve gone back to a very 90s approach. If I like a song from an artist, I check out the album. If I hear about an artist or album from someone, I listen to do. I’m also currently making my way through a list of the top 500 albums of all time to find some gems that I missed along the way. A streaming service is helpful for this to avoid spending a fortune or collecting a lot of music I don’t end up liking, but I treat the service more like a store. Apple Music works great for this, while Spotify and YouTube Music were a bit of a mess.

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#97

Post by Ntrails » Wed, May 27, 2026, 6:07 PM UTC

NiloCK wrote: post #82

I'm mostly unfamiliar with the current offering of last.fm, but the name is familiar from way back. Glad to see something well-liked reclaim some independence. At a glance, they're providing an interface to YT sourced content with some value adds around tracking or categorizing listening. A quick question for users: can the site itself be configured as a listener without streaming / displaying the video? In general,…

I'd be way more sold if I could pass in a static dump of my library music and get a handful of suggestions to demonstrate value.

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#98

Post by forgotmypw17 » Wed, May 27, 2026, 6:07 PM UTC

punkbit wrote: post #16

Last.fm used to be special, but this was a long time ago. Just tried to login, recovered the password and seems that its just a tracker nowadays. In the past I could listen to music and drop a comment, meet new people, etc.

I tried to log in, and I remembered my password, but it forced me to do an email reset anyway. I no longer have that domain/email, so I guess my data and access are lost also. Shame.

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#99

Post by sailfast » Wed, May 27, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

retired wrote: post #54

wldcordeiro wrote: post #42

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…

I switched to Apple Music to save some money and I find the curation and the recommendations to be significantly better than Spotify.

For me curation was better but I was really missing the ability to quickly seed a playlist with a specific vibe and build from there for specific moods.

That, and the desktop app and confusion between library and Apple Music streaming was annoying to manage. They need to unify that experience or split it completely.

Re: Last.fm is now independent

#100

Post by chipotle_coyote » Wed, May 27, 2026, 6:11 PM UTC

retired wrote: post #54

wldcordeiro wrote: post #42

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…

I switched to Apple Music to save some money and I find the curation and the recommendations to be significantly better than Spotify.

I've tried to switch to Spotify from Apple Music a few times because the common wisdom seems to be that Spotify has better algorithmic recommendations. But Apple Music "knows" what I like already, and Spotify never grabs me so fast that I'm willing to stick around for weeks training it -- and I suspect part of that is all of Apple Music's human-made playlists. Apple Music has hired a lot of good editors/curators over the years, and I haven't found any service -- including audiophile darlings Qobuz and Tidal -- that beats it in that aspect.