I Am A DJ, I Am What I Play

So you may have noticed the little LastFm album quilt over to the left there, and now the “Top Artists This Week” widget below it. I got lazy about updating the albums that I’m currently listening to and many people seemed to like the LastFm application.
Initially I resisted because it only tracks the stuff I listen to on the computer. So if I listen to a cd in the car or down in my man-cave, it doesn’t list it. It does have the ability to track iPod usage but I don’t have an iPod.
Yet, anyway.
So I referred to getting one earlier and it will happen in time (read: I have kids and I’m broke), so that’s a subject for another time.
It got to the point where I really didn’t give a shit if LastFm didn’t track my playlists accurately; it was more of an “I’m tired of having to update my recently played list manually” type of thing. This thing does it automatically and, truth be told, I listen to a lot more music on this laptop that I do in my basement anyway.
Again, I have kids.
When I installed LastFm, I fell in love with it immediately. I believe that true music lovers also love the art of categorizing their shit, alphabetizing albums, putting everything into nice accessible and logical sequences. At least I do; my ex-wife used to put shit back into my collection haphazardly until she got sick of me bitching about it that she would then just put it on top of the cd rack and let me put it back.
It takes a sick person to be worked up when Sonic Youth’s Evol is found sitting after Daydream Nation, but that’s me.
LastFm keeps track of the shit I play, the artists, how many times I play them, and as retarded as that all sounds, it’s brilliant. It’s pretty hard to juice it up by playing artists/songs merely on the idea that they’ll be seen as cooler by hipster lurkers.
First of all, it’s pathetically unreliable (more on that later) and secondly, I’m the type of fucker that will suddenly move from Sun City Girls into Janet Jackson because I’m a crazy motherfucker.
So what that means is that I would drive myself crazy trying to impress you because I’m at that point in my life where I don’t care what you think.
Ok, maybe I do a little bit, but at least I can acknowledge how great Midnight Star is while also understand how awful they are.
The other thing I like about LastFm is how it can totally contradict the user. I gave faint praise for Panda Bear’s Person Pitch while showering praise for Animal Collective’s Strawberry Jam.
So guess which one I listen to more?
I’m sorry, but “Comfy In Nautica” and the epic “Bros” are just incredible.
I think I might have been wrong in my original assessment.
And Robert Wyatt’s Comicopera? Now admittedly, many of those listens were while I was reviewing the album, but after panning it somewhat, I still continued to listen to it. I’m sheepishly standing by that review, but there are some pretty dark moments on it that I am strangely drawn to.
Now that I’ve gotten all hot ‘n bothered about LastFm, it’s important to note how frustrating it is. There are times, days actually, when something happens and none of my plays get “scrobbled.” I usually go to the forums then to see if someone else is having similar issues only to learn that, at any given moment, hundreds of people are having the same issue, even when mine is working properly.
It’s a free service, I understand this, but I’ll be goddamned if I pay for anything as my experience on the free side has been completely frustrating.
Seriously, there are a number of different “tips” that I’ve used repeatedly in the hopes that I can get the application to work properly only to have it suddenly start working for no apparent reason.
My most recent problem was with an entire evenings worth of listening showing as scrobbled only to check the link the following day to see that everything had been erased.
Regardless, there are enough bells and whistles to keep logging in and checking out what other hipsters across the world are listening to.
It makes me happy that there is a 20-year-old chick in England that is listening to some Dylan at the same time I am, or an 18 year old in Poland that’s spinning “Sister Ray” while I’m cooking to a cut from V.U.