The New (More Useful) last.fm

On January 23rd, 2008, the popular music site last.fm added the functionality to stream music from all the major music labels. When I first heard this news, I did not think much of it. Who streams music anymore? Most listeners have MP3s ripped from a purchased disc, or tracks they have obtained through iTunes. As it turns out, I was very wrong.

The truth is that last.fm has now become 1000x more useful than it was before. Since I started using the site a few months back I have had a lot of fun with it, but its purpose was simply for amusement. There was nothing which interested me past tracking what songs I listened to the most, including genre, artist, etc. With this new addition of streaming full tracks (up to three times), the site has opened up a ton of new uses that make it even more worthwhile to sign up.

Now when a friend recommends you a band, you can simply go to the last.fm website and enter in the band’s name. Within seconds you are listening to full-length tracks of their popular songs. It is a great way to discover new music and find out your feelings about bands before purchasing. To search for a band, just use the huge obnoxious search box on the front page.

You can also use the ‘Music Search’ box in the top right-hand corner while browsing the site.

Once you have arrived at the artist you want to listen to, use the player to listen to any available tracks.

Some artists may have free MP3 downloads, or they allow the track to be purchased through Amazon MP3. If this is the case you will see the options right next to the tracks, as shown below.

I have already been able to preview several artists with this new feature. Some of them were recommended to me by talking to friends, and others were recommended to me right through the site itself. Not only does last.fm generate recommendations based on your tastes, it also allows users who are friends with you on the site to send you artists they think you will be interested in. Both of these features coupled with the new streaming ability give the site a whole new level of usefulness.

With that in mind, you can expect some music reviews in the near future. However, for the time being, do you think this streaming ability is as convenient as I do? At the very least it beats the random 30 second previews in the iTunes Store.