Oh, there have been a few problems the last several days, but they seem to be gone at the moment. A number of profiles got weird tracks spammed into them during the import process last Thursday and it took them a couple of days to back that information out and restart the queues. (For instance, my count for Rilo Kiley's "Does He Love You?" went from 16 to 226. It had played just once.)

One thing I've been curious about, but not enough to test it yet, is if Audioscrobbler submits track data from Shoutcasts. If it does then our DJs could be skewing the results. Anyone know already if this is happening?

I don't know if it does. At least when you run them thru itunes, they don't come up as separate tracks. I think.

Shoutcasts don't show up as the individual tracks, dodgy. I checked that out already. I was all set to disable audioscrobbler if the songs showed up. Why? Because I'm anal, I guess?

I happen to like the white stripes, but am more or less listened out on them, I have no idea why anyone likes the arcade fire and I have very few "hate indie because it's indie" notions, so I guess will note that I would hate for anyone to disencourage people from listening to the music they like just because the creators might or might not be icons, or assume that you are not being tounge in cheek, dhartung (although I have been guilty of looking down my nose at other peoples music in the past, luckily I am a catholic inflected atheist).

Now, I've got that out the way, I like the zeitgeist angle of last fm, but don't have much use for its other "features" and the player cocks up constantly.

PS. I have amazingly good taste in music.

Podcasts get pushed to audioscrobbler btw from an ipod, but I don't know if they get absorbed by last.fm.

Podcast is such a terrible word and now there will never be another one.

Podcast: fishing using testicles as bait

I have no idea why anyone likes the arcade fire

Because they're fucking good?

That was my point capn, someone always likes what you hate.

Divine Wino: You could always download the mixes that I post, then use them to help me skew the group towards the cool and the weird.

Nothing I listen too ever shows up on any top ten list. I am forever alone.

Q: Has anyone ever got the last FM Profile Editor to work? I tried it in IE, Firefox and Opera and it just don't go.

Keep in mind almost all my posts about last.FM are at least a little tongue-in-cheek. That said, I do like most of what might paradoxically be termed "mainstream indie", and Funeral is one of those albums I had an electric reaction to.

For the weird vs. mainstream thing, though, keep in mind this is just a rough profile. All it takes is one person listening to a track to get it into the group profile, and if it's music that's on Last.FM (and they're adding music virtually continuously), it will get played on group radio. For myself, the group stats are just sort of a fun snapshot (especially to track YSIs) and the group radio is a rough substitute for not getting into the mix swap. If you don't like it, don't sweat it, nobody's forcing you to play our group radio. ;-)

But please do contribute your stats anyway!

Someone always liking what you hate, of course, is the whole point of Last.FM. Play "similar artists" to your own favorites, or join some other groups, that's the way to enjoy it.

Shoutcasts: as I understand it the shoutcaster submits played tracks, if using a plugin-enabled player, but since the radio is seen as a stream by receivers, listening doesn't affect the stats. (Theoretically, though, I wouldn't count this as distorting them. Somebody listened to it, didn't they? Moot.)

That was my point capn, someone always likes what you hate.

No no... they're objectively good. Scientists have proven it... using science!

Just ask this scientician..

How do the group charts even work? My total N for a bunch of artists is far higher than the N that the MetaChat group shows. For instance, here are my top five:

1 The Beatles 48
2 Sonic Youth 21
2 Deerhoof 21
2 Bob Dylan 21
5 Pennywise 18

Fuck nevermind. I just had too look at the numbers a little more. So the group N is just the number of members who listened to a particular artist or song.

Please listen to more Kate Bush.
t.i.a.
love,
seanyboy.

Yeah, personal charts are number of listens, any group charts are number of listeners (termed "reach"). This reduces the incentive to spam the statistics.

seanyboy: I'm pitching in, but Aerial really hasn't grabbed me yet.

My recent obsession with the Talking Heads box set has gotten them onto the chart.

The title of this post cracked me up to no end, stilicho.

Kate Bush: Post a track?

Kate Bush: Post a track?

hmm.

hmm.

Hmm?

Seany, I was doing my part earlier tonight. I got Hounds of Love about three weeks ago and am still digging it.