I can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of internet radio, but just recently I’ve been using Audioscrobbler and Last.fm which have just changed my mind completely.
I don’t know if I’m just fickle with what I like but I’ve never really found any radio station, internet or not, that I can leave on without fiddling around with if a track I don’t particularly like comes on. If I’m sat at a computer I’d much rather listen to my own choice of music rather than someone else’s. This is where the clever bit starts…
Audioscrobbler is a system which records what you have been listening to by using a plugin of some kind in your music player, in my case winamp. It can then suggest other bands you might like, based on what other people with similar music tastes are listening to. 'Tis an excellent way to explain who your favourite bands are, too; this is what I’ve been listening to since I started: http://www.audioscrobbler.com/user/flippet/
Last.fm then uses this information to make your own personalised internet radio station. No more skipping rubbish tracks is needed because it won’t play you any… it will play tracks it knows you like and tracks that it thinks you’ll like, and I’m finding it works really well. It’s probably going to cost me loads in CDs given the number of new bands I’ve found in the last week, but compared to trying to filter out some of the rubbish that passes as music it’s like night and day.
Phil
