thats great. ive been using last.fm for a while now, and theyre getting better and better. u/n= glassmusic

glass

This is great news for people who have been following their tranformation since the Audioscrobbler days. Thanks for the heads up.

loudersoft

This is a bit off topic, but does the last.fm plug in work in iTunes 7 + vista? I've uninstalled and reinstalled several times, but it doesn't seem to do anything at all via iTunes.

Brad Isaac

Thanks thats great

rubu

What a major step up for last.fm. I wish you could listen to your own radio station though. It wasn't too long ago that you could get around that just by signing out.

Potrod

i heart lastfm when i'm at work. but last week i was running around the building and it played 3 Leonard Nimoy songs for me. I really want to know how Leonard Nimoy was something they thought I'd like...

wilmawonker

Dude, high five for the Hold Steady.

Separation Sunday = probably the second-best album of 2005.

A strolling player

Except that it doesn't recognise my speakers which are plugged in via USB (and ALL other apps have never had a problem with them!!!)

ecobore

@wilmawonker: Heh - Spock and Roll.

Brian

@POBOX90210: Yes, that's true of most albums, but there's still some albums which show the whole is more than the sum of it's parts.

Like an artist having an exhibition, rather than selling separate pieces, sometimes there's a unifying theme, maybe obvious, like Nick Cave's Murder Ballads, or maybe more subtle.
Then too, is the album that works like a good mix tape/CD - taking you up, and down again, taking you across emotions and themes with enough contrast to feel like you're riding a wave. I really, really like Cure for Pain by Morphine, I couldn't really tell you why it's my favourite album, even if they're not my favourite band, but it is.

Of course, I've had friends complaining that the art of the mixtape is dying out with MP3's - a certain point. May I quietly encourage others to put together lists of say 5-12 songs in an order they feel appropriate, linked to iTunes or *cough* other music/file sharing services, and put them up on their blogs/journals? Locked or otherwise?
I've had some friends do this, and it's introduced or reintroduced me to music in a far more personal way than Pandora or Last.fm can manage, given the tendency of online sites to recommend music to you which *sound* similar to what you already like - which may not be what you're going for. Viva le difference!

Sangrail

What is an album?
Why did it ever come into existance?
In this day of the internet and such is an album really needed anymore?

It's a collection of songs.
It was made to sell you the single you got and some more lesser known tracks you would never have bought if they were singles. The production cost wasn't much more but the markup was sweet.
No. But making one still means selling those lesser known and perhaps liked songs from your favourite group of the week.

pobox90210

Just started using this and its great, but how to stream a full album? Can only start a station as of yet.

groale

@pobox90210, Sangrail: The Hold Steady's Separation Sunday is an excellent example of an album that's much more than the sum of its constituent tracks. Every song is necessary to the bigger picture, the mythology if you will of Hollie and Charlemagne and the rest of the characters.

Maybe Lifehacker put that screencap there for a reason.

A strolling player

Listen to any of Drive-By Truckers' "Southern Rock Opera," and you'll get a better understanding of the concept of a cohesive album as a whole rather than the sum of its parts. Great record.

pk500

Thank you, Lifehacker, you brought me the best news of this week.

MJ

@Sangrail: ditto Cure for Pain, excellent album.

Another great concept album is The Streets "A Grand Don't Come For Free" - where each song tells part of a story.

The story has been written out on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Grand_Don't_Come_for_Free
(the apostrophe messed up Lifehacker autolinking)

TJOHO