I've just left a comment over at 3 Quarks Daily, extolling Audioscrobbler and Last.fm. Then I remembered Danah Boyd's posting yesterday, which concluded:
When i ask a friend for music advice, i don't simply say "give me anything you listen to." I know better. But i would ask "could you make me a dub mix?" or "what would complement Dr Toast?" Or think about the Back to Mine series (collections based on what musicians chill out to). I want my last.FM to understand that there are moods. All of my playlists get this. All of my genrification gets this. Now it's time for last.FM. I should be able to play everything that userx thinks makes for "coding music" or for "chill out" or for "getting ready to go out." I want to be able to cluster my music. I want to be able to inform Audioscrobbler to only tell the genre group "PsyTrance" about things that i've marked Full-On, Melodic, Scando or PsyChill. Or tell them about a playlist or two. Tag the genres so that i don't blush when i see my love of Johnny Cash appear as appropriate for other Trip-Hop fiends.
Dead right. I tend not to play classical music on my laptop, so it doesn't make much of an appearance on Audioscrobbler. But listening obsessively just recently to Glenn Gould playing Bach (English Suites, BWV 806–811), on my laptop, Bach now makes a curious and egregious (modern and archaic senses both intended) appearance on my Audioscrobbler feed.
