I often find myself sitting in a hotel room in a strange city far away from the decent speakers and real music choices offered from my home stereo. Tonight is one of those nights -- with one difference. Tonight I decided to try out last.fm.
OK, it's got that Web 2.0 feel of tags and community -- both of which I am too old for. Or at least too cranky for. They call themselves a 'social music revolution'. I suppose that is yet to be seen.
After a painless signup process, I downloaded a small app for my Mac and was ready to go. For kicks, I searched on Aimee Mann -- fully expecting her not to be found. I had figured last.fm as an all indy / digital youth type of music provider. Was I ever wrong. Not only was Ms. Mann there, but so was Fiest, Simon and Garfunkle and the Pixies. This turned real cool real fast.
For those who use Rhapsody (or used to use them before the price increase) the service is similar to the Artist Radio feature -- except that you can tag the songs and mark them with Love and Ban markers. I am assuming Ban forever stops that song from coming back to haunt me (something that Rhapsody should have learned).
Cost? The basic service appears to be free. For $3/month, last.fm promises priority access to the webservers and some other niceties including access to their beta program. I may be tempted to try that out soon.
I'm not sure if this will work with Sonos yet. That would be a major selling point for getting me to subscribe.
Summary: For genre specific music (both old favorits and introductions to new artists) last.fm seems to ROCK (every pun intended). Give it a try. Rumor has it that the service works with the Nokia N800 as well (which would turn good to great!).
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