New Interface

Awful terrible new looks - an option to keep the old layout should be made available, just like in MySpace. I'm absolutely revolted with this, one of my very few web pleasures has gone down the toilet!!! ¬¬

First thing I thought when I loaded my page up today was "Holy crap, it's a myspace/facebook clone."

Please give the identity back to last.fm. Some of the new features are nice, but the whole thing overall just makes me want to barf. I liked coming here and seeing charts that had some depth at a glance. The previous version was much more streamlined. The only thing I like about this new version so far is the Top Tracks radio on user's pages. The charts and recent played info looks like they took the nice minimal previous version, blew it up 200% and threw it back where it was. It's totally unnecessary. It takes an eternity to load, but that's not too important. I remember the change to the last version made everything slower for a few weeks.

Mostly my complaint is that the new layout is hideous and looks like it was designed by dudes in a high school web class that said "HAY MAHSPACE IS COOL, LETS JACK THE LAYOUT"

oh boy, this new interface is awesome... NOT!

You've made a big mistake here last.fm

Not only is it ugly and just like all the social networking site layouts, it's slow as hell too.

We didn't need a new layout, we needed more features! How about artist merging? How's that function coming along?

i hate it

Exactly! This is horrible! Every single website is becoming increasingly like facebook. I thought this was a music site, not somewhere wher I can be bored on updates about whose shoutbox my 'friends' have chatted in. I don't want pictures of bands on my profile - why is there not even the option to hide them? The old design was simple, different and worked - a newcomer to this site would just give up. Simplicity was much better...everything's just messed up here now.

This isn't just simple 'i don't like change' whining. This really is poor. Hopefully a 'switch back to normal' button appears after a while when the bumps are smoothed out and the website speeds up.

I can get used to a new interface but today nothing is working and I just subscribed YESTERDAY!
I hope this server problem is rectified soon.
It would be nice to be able to use the old version until things are straightened out.
I have songs posted here as well as becoming an ardent supporter over the last couple of months and this is bad timing, for me at least.

I don't mind change. Change is a good thing.

This, however, sucks. I can't believe one of my favourite and most used sites is about to go straight to the trash bin. If you want to make a site look like a new vulgar, post-modern tacky iPod which is completely user-unfriendly, then there are plenty of pointless social gathering sites to visit. There is absolutely no need to destroy one of the best working and most appealing sites that's been praised for years, without any option of a decline. Quite simply, horrible service and a now horrible site.

The entire server is slow, probably from the overwhelming urge for every user that hasn't signed up in the past 10 minutes to express just how bad this is. The really insulting part is that not one of the complaints will be heard, and we'll be stuck with this piece of crap without a word of rebuttal. I, surprisingly, feel very let down.

I'm extremely picky and opinionated on this kind of thing so feel like I must make a mark on such a wonderful site... :)

1.) Radio Player
I would like some kind of miniature version of the radio player, as it's taking up way too much room and I've pretty much never used it.
In fact, the windows app is so much better that I think you should be pushing that, and not junking peoples pages up with some huge flash player which doesn't even conform to the colour scheme... It looks bad, and you stuck the most useless part of the site at the top-right of the screen where it wastes lots of the most valuable screen space!
I'd move the Radio Player near the Library since there are some 'play in the radio player' links.

2.) About Me
The 'About Me' section is related to yourself, and should be next to the avatar and user details, and not sandwiched between the recent visitors and recent activity... Does it have anything to do with 'recent' information? No.
Logically place it next to the information it relates to.

3.) Recently Listened Tracks
I don't like the way the hearts float in the middle of nowhere.

4.) xyz's Library
I feel this is the new 'music you've listened to in the last 7 days' since it's taken its position, however, it is not this by default... Why not?
Also, does it fulfil the purpose of showing somebody your most listened to music of that last week? Maybe it doesn't even work for it's purpose. Can somebody really see your music taste in a glance at 10 photos?
Why is the tags box not a tag cloud? Users have been sticking tag clouds in their profiles for a long while now, and you're still not doing it for them. Shame.
If you have an empty play lists box then it just leaves white space. Ick!

5.) Top Artists/Tracks
That 'Last 7 Days' tab is really annoying me now. I know it'd be breaking the UI conventions, but I really think that it's important enough to get it's own section - and me having to make do with perverting the use of the Library above is a bit lame.

6.) Shoutbox
It's been relegated to the bottom of the screen where it's awkward to reach. Isn't the whole point of shouting that it's fast, and you get the message across quickly?
I know you can click on a link to get to this part of the screen quicker, but let's face it, most people will never realise that. Only the 'techie' types will...
It's also far too large. Personally, like a lot of people I talk to people privately in messages, and I talk in forums to large groups of people about music.
I think the last thing is what you should be improving because other music sites actually have decent music communities while last.fm has pushed everybody into tiny groups where the conversation is spread too thin, and people are stuck in their musical grooves. Why the hell isn't there a general music chat forum, or one for each of the main genres at least?!! The fact that you haven't even attempted to do this is a lot of the reason this place has no sense of community, and is a huge danger to you, because that means if something better comes a long people won't feel the need to stay.

If you're wondering where I think the shoutbox should really go. I think it should be placed where the About Me section currently is (which as I've said should be moved to where the Radio currently is...Causing the radio to be moved to somewhere around the Library I think)...

As I said: opinionated! :)

I agree. I can't stand the new aesthetics and it takes so long to load.

It looks vile. :S
Shoutbox right down at the bottom? So I have to keep scrolling past my charts?
Unwanted player on the top right?
Can't even see the dashboard link so I have no idea what my friends are listening to.
Horrific facebook style list of things I did recently. Might be nice in 60 years time when I have Alzheimer's...
What's the huge block of images labelled "library" all about? :S I tried clicking settings to see if I could make it go away but it just says loading until I cry and give in.
And worst of all. Far beyond the clumsy layout... It's red...and blue. RED AND BLUE! O_O It burns! :'( I want my nice gentle black back. It's all so bright...

Perhaps if it had the black option... and a drag and drop interface like igoogle so I could move it all back to where it makes sense and remove the clutter. And some way to colour those retina burning blue bars something more subtle.

After reading over much feedback I think the over-whelming conclusion is that an option for the 'old-style' should be added in a button.

I've thought of the options and frankly I can't say any negative in that point what so ever. Last.fm and the users get the epitome of the best of both worlds, and I'm sure it won't take a hell of a lot of server space or effort to provide it, am I right?

I think it would be incredibly foolish and ignorant to look over and not consider this possibility. I honestly feel it is going to be the only middle ground you are going to draw between your users, as I've seen in many posts, many of them aren't going to be returning if this is implemented permanently.