I am a big music fan. I would like to say i listen to anything and everything, but for all that know me, this isn’t true. I love my electronic music, from Drum & Bass to Schranz and Hardtechno. If it has energy and drive, then I’m all for it. With the internet as it is, you can pretty much get access to all sorts of music from all across the world, some free and others “free”. Finding new music however would always hurt my bandwidth quota, yeh, i have a quota. So it was until i found out something so holy as Last.fm that i wasn’t being slowed to 6kbs at the end of each month (what happens when you meet the quota, dahhh).

Last.fm is an online service that provides you with a listener’s profile. You might think wow, i get to add my favourite artists and music, well i can do that in a notepad or on my Facebook page you idiot! But wait for it, all the work is done for you! There is a little program that can run on just about any operating system or gadget which when you play music, will automatically upload the artist and track name of the listened song to a listened log on your Last.fm page. Overtime this will represent your music taste and favourite artists.

So what’s next you ask? Well this is where i cut down on quota. Last.fm also plays host to a ton (if music had a mass index) of audio files, of which can be organised by the mega powers at Last.fm into your own unique radio station. With the application loaded on your computer or iPod, these audio files will be streamed to you based on your music taste, of which you have shown to Last.fm in your listening log!

You might think this is pretty basic, but i am amazed at how accurate Last.fm is with its recommendations. I have heard many a song that i had been tracking down for the past years that has come up in my recommendations radio station. You can keep track of the songs you love by clicking on the love symbol and then go ahead and locate them later on, which is what i usually do. Although Last.fm has a heap of buying options right there on the page also.

Another thing i like to do when i am searching for new music is go to my favourite artists pages and look at their similar artists, then take a look at their music. This way of finding music is much easier than relying on the nerds that upload the files and label it “techno” or “electronic” when it is in fact the hamster dance song. However i believe Last.fm is requesting the paid subscription of some of these services. I’m not too sure what’s up there, they said its free in some countries and others not! Lame. Browsing similar artists however is still an awesome way to find new beats if you don’t have the $ to put in some online billionaire’s pocket.