New New Musical Express - August 2008

New Music August 2008, by Nialloleary

Extract:

Brighton Port Authority new album entitled "Toe Jam". (Rated at 4/5)

“Conceptual high jinks surround the release of Fatboy Slims new record, but its the music that impresses cranked-up reggae featuring the unlikely pairing of David Byrne and Dizzee Rascal. With Iggy Pop, Jamie T and Martha Wainwright also set to feature on Fatboys new album, we can expect Extras -style pushing of the envelope, replete with celeb cameos galore.”

Recommended tracks to download.....’Toe Jam'

http://http://www.myspace.com/thebpa

Toshiba innovators: Martin Stiksel, co-founder, Last.fm

From letting a colleague camp on his office roof in lieu of payment to enabling users to discover a whole new world of music at the click of a button, Martin Stiksel likes to do things differently. And as his business has recently been aquired by CBS for £140m, it's safe to say he's also doing something right


Video link

Name: Martin Stiksel

Nationality: Austrian

Age: 33

Job title: Co-founder of Last.fm

Last.fm is the world's largest juke box, with more than 5m tracks available for anyone to listen to online. But it is more than that - if you log on and register it will create a unique music profile for you, enabling you to link up with your "musical soulmates" and recommending you tracks and artists based on your established music tastes.

Birth of the idea

"I'd been a DJ in Austria and moved to London in the late 1990s, because this is the city to be in if you are into music," says Stiksel. "Originally I teamed up with [fellow Last.fm co-founder] Felix Miller to create an online record label for unsigned bands. Musicians were able to upload music and get people to listen to it. We had some amazing music and we wanted to work out how to get these great bands to the people - how do you promote music that people know nothing about?"

Stiksel and Miller came up with the idea of building a profile of music taste, similar to the way in which Amazon recommends books to its users based on what they have previously looked for or bought, and in this way they could lead listeners to bands they might not otherwise have heard of. "This was back in 2002, and then we came across an article in the Guardian, which described Richard Jones's Audioscrobbler - basically he was creating software plugins that work with your media player to monitor what you listen to and then builds up an accurate music profile, which means that new suggestions can be made based on what you listen to, and what other people listen to who like the same bands as you. Richard was still at university, but we got the train down to Southampton and hired him to work for us before he had finished his degree."

Stiksel and Miller had been running Last.fm for about a year before recruiting Richard and had built up about 1,000 users. When they implemented his Audioscrobbler software the traffic shot up. "It was great to have more users, but we avoided any press coverage or publicity at that time because our servers just couldn't cope with the increase in traffic that this would provoke. Publicity was an enemy at that stage," Stiksel recalls. "The site was growing in popularity purely by being passed around music fans and by being picked up by bloggers, who were able to display their most recently listened to tracks on their blogs."

Growth of the company

In the early days Last.fm was a typical start-up, with the partners using savings and loans from their parents to fund the company. They weren't even able to pay proper salaries. Richard was living in a tent pitched on the office roof. "I then managed to convince a friend to lend me some more money and with an investment of £50,000 we got to one million users. That was enough to convince an angel investor to come on board in October 2005, which allowed us to improve our technical infrastructure so that we could support the increased volume of traffic on our site. Our initial revenue was coming from Google advertising and links to Amazon to sell music. We also really benefited from user donations in the early days. Once institutional investment arrived we scaled up the whole operation."

Buy out

Last year, the three founders sold the site to the US media giant CBS for £140m, making it the largest ever acquisition of a UK social networking company. The deal made the three co-founders multi-millionaires over night (they each received more than £19m). It's safe to say Richard is no longer sleeping on the office roof.

"We had acquisition requests from as early as 2005," Stiksel points out, "but we felt it was too early for us, that we hadn't yet achieved what we wanted to with the site. When CBS came along we really felt that that was the way forward. We saw eye-to-eye on our vision - that we can become the last place for music on the internet, a one-stop shop for music online. We wanted to be solidly set up to weather any storms that came our way. With CBS behind us we felt that we could achieve more. It helps to have someone big behind you showing you support, it gives other people confidence in you that they just don't have in a start-up."

Since then, they have seen strong usage growth in all sectors. "We have been able to launch a couple of new services that we just didn't think we'd be capable of doing - such as the free on-demand service which allows listeners to play millions of tracks in their entirety. Contrary to stopping people from buying music, this has led to an increase of 66% of 'buy button' clicks, which shows that being able to listen to music [for free on Last.fm] sustains the industry rather than canabalising it."

The future

So what of the future? "Employees now feel much more secure than when we were a start-up and it is easier to hire people and to attract other business partners," Stiksel says. "Our offices have expanded and we now employ more than 80 staff.

"There was a real need for a great music site. YouTube was there for video but music didn't have a home. Last.fm is its home. Our mission is implicit in our name - we want to be the last place for music on the internet. We will continue to expand, there is so much to do."

Source: The Guardian, UK

Keane are offering their new single, Spiralling, as a limited period free download. Go to their official website - http://www.keanemusic.com/ - give them your email address and you're done.

The single is a taster of their forthcoming new album, Perfect Symmetry, due 13 October.

Don't worry, it's nothing like anything they've done before.

Aug 4, 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares in Warner Music Group fell as much as 12 percent in early trading on Monday after Goldman Sachs analysts' downgraded the company's stock to a "sell" rating from "neutral."

Ingrid Chung, media analyst at Goldman Sachs, said her team does not see any near-to-intermediate term improvement in prospects for the music industry with U.S. album sales down 11 percent in both the first quarter and second quarter.

Warner, the third largest music company in the world, is home to artists such as Madonna, R.E.M. and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

"We believe that Warner Music Group will find it increasingly difficult to improve its U.S. market share after six straight quarters of doing so," said Chung in a note to clients.

Chung believes it will also be increasingly difficult for Warner to manage costs as revenue continues to decline.

Warner will post its fiscal third quarter earnings on Thursday.

Shares in Warner fell 71 cents to $7.55 on the New York Stock Exchange, after falling as low as $7.24 earlier in the session.

Source: Reuters

New single from Calexico - Two Silver Trees, fully streamable in Last.fm. Taken from their forthcoming new album, Carried To Dust, due 9 Sept.

August 11, 2008

Last week, an appeals court determined that Cablevision wasn't liable for copyright infringement if their customers chose they programs it recorded. Could that ruling present a new loophole for Internet streaming radio?

In a completely unanticipated twist due to unforeseen repercussions, the Copyright Office of the US Library of Congress extended its hearing for public comments on the viability of copyright law for Internet radio into next month. This after it was determined that an appeals court decision last week in favor of cable TV provider Cablevision, ruling that its proposed remote DVR technology was not in violation of copyright, may have an impact on current copyright law regarding Internet streaming radio.

"The Office agrees that the ruling in the Cartoon Network case may be pertinent to the issues raised in this rulemaking," reads a notice issued last Friday (PDF available here), "and that interested parties should be given sufficient time in which to consider and comment upon the implications of that ruling. Therefore, the Office has decided to extend the deadlines for submission of comments."

Specifically, experts have apparently reasoned that the court's conclusion may impact whether Internet broadcasters are actually responsible for copyright at all, given that the court ruled that Cablevision was legally not the "performer" of copyrighted works when the customer requests them and displays them on his or her own schedule.

"In the case of a VCR, it seems clear -- and we know of no case holding otherwise -- that the operator of the VCR, the person who actually presses the button to make the recording, supplies the necessary element of volition, not the person who manufactures, maintains, or, if distinct from the operator, owns the machine," wrote Second Circuit Court of Appeals Judge John M. Walker, Jr., on behalf of a unanimous three-judge panel last Monday. "We do not believe that an RS-DVR customer is sufficiently distinguishable from a VCR user to impose liability as a direct infringer on a different party for copies that are made automatically upon that customer's command."

Depending on your interpretation, this may be very good news for the Internet radio listener, or very bad. The Second Circuit opinion last week could be interpreted as saying that plaintiffs, which include Turner Broadcasting (thus leading to the affair having been dubbed the Cartoon Network case), sued the wrong party. In turn, if copyright holders continue to have a grudge, they should take their case directly to the public. Or, they could argue that perhaps everyone using an RS-DVR owes copyright holders a bill, and that services such as Cablevision should be called upon to collect it on their behalf.

If that interpretation extends to Internet radio -- which is what the Copyright Office is working to determine -- then perhaps services such as Pandora and Last.fm are not liable for copyright infringement, under the theory that the listener is the one who throws the switch. But if that's the case, copyright holders could conceivably pursue individuals in a manner similar to the recording industry's legal pursuit of unauthorized file sharers.

The deadline for comments to be received by the Office of the General Counsel of the Copyright Office is now end-of-business on August 28, with the deadline for replies to comments extended to end-of-business September 15. A hearing on the Copyright Office's proposed rulemaking has now been set for 10:00 am September 19 in Washington.

While this is going on, the executive director of the SoundExchange performance rights organization, John Simson, Mercury News last Thursday, called upon Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D - Calif.) to support a bill extending artists' royalties to traditional terrestrial radio. Rep. Lofgren supports a measure that would apply the Internet radio royalty rate to terrestrial radio. However, if that Internet rate is determined to be zero by virtue of the Cartoon Network ruling, the state of affairs for broadcasters may remain unchanged.

"Today, AM and FM radio stations pay zero royalties to artists when they play their songs over the air," Simson wrote. "That means every time you hear a song...no performer -- from the front man to the session musicians - is compensated. As a point of reference, that same song played over the Internet, satellite radio, television or in any other Western democracy would earn a royalty for the artists and musicians that brought the music to life. In fact, when those same AM and FM radio stations that broadcast music for free stream performances over their Web sites, they pay a royalty for those songs, but continue to refuse to do so when they play it on your traditional radio. Corporate radio is the only music platform getting a free ride."

Source: Beta News

13 Aug 2008

According to July comScore Media Metrix, Significant Organic Audience Growth Achieved after Successful Implementation of Cross Promotion Efforts



NEW YORK, Aug. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- CBS Interactive today announced dramatic increases in traffic across its leading brands, according to comScore Media Metrix (July 2008, U.S. Data). The increases reflect organic audience growth and successful cross promotion efforts both online and on air (TV and Radio) that have taken hold in the first month of integration between CBS Interactive and CNET Networks.

Several sites within CBS Interactive recorded all-time highs in what is historically a slow month for growth online. Select findings of the comScore data include:

-- CNET.com posted a 22% increase in unique visitors over July 2007, pointing to early success of its beta release, which launched in June and officially launches later this month, as well as the success of early integration programs such as CNET and CBS coverage of the iPhone.

-- BNET.com posted a 19% increase in unique visitors over last month, underscoring the success of the recent BNET Industries launch in April, and its overall position as the go-to resource for business managers and one of the most-visited business sites.

-- CBSSports.com, which is gearing up for Fantasy Football -- pro AND college -- in the coming weeks, continues to dominate in "loyalty metrics," leading all major sports sites over the past three months in average minutes per visitor, average pages per visitor and average visits per visitor. For the months of May, June and July of 2008, visitors to CBSSports.com averaged a combined hour and eight minutes on the site, over ten minutes more than any competitor. For the past three months users also averaged 8.3 visits to CBSSports.com per month, with the closest competitor averaging 6.3 visits per month.

-- CBS.com had a 32% increase in unique users over the previous month, the largest among broadcast network TV websites. CBS.com also had the most engaged audience among the broadcast network TV sites, with users spending 20 minutes viewing 21 pages - demonstrating early success for the "CBS HD Gallery," which launched in mid-July.

-- GameSpot posted a 21% year over year increase in unique visitors driven by the success of its E3 convention coverage, which drew record traffic and activity including over 100 million pages viewed and 5 million videos streamed(1).

-- Last.fm posted a 20% increase in unique visitors from last month and a 36% increase in user-engagement since last month's launch of its redesigned user-interface, its highest-ever traffic. Last.fm also saw a dramatic 208% year-over-year increase in total minutes and a 62% increase in unique visitors, as well as 115% increase in page views.

-- TV.com, which will debut a new look in time for the fall television season, saw a 10% increase in unique monthly users over last month.

-- CHOW's unique monthly users increased 24% month over month and 256% over the previous year, as more food fans turned to the site for fun, practical advice on cooking and food.

"Not only are we seeing record highs for several properties but to see them during seasonally slow months attests to the benefit of combination across these great categories. It also serves to prove the value of on-air call outs and brand building support via purposeful cross promotion from CBS Television and CBS Radio," said Quincy Smith, CEO, CBS Interactive. "With more cross promotion programs and events on the way, upcoming site updates for many of our leading brands, and a world class team that knows how to take advantage of the opportunities this combination affords, we're looking forward to the Fall and Winter."

"There is no better proof of successful integration than the growth of our brands, and these numbers clearly show that we continue to produce the best online content across technology, news, sports, entertainment and business," said Neil Ashe, President, CBS Interactive. "In just the first month, we have executed significant cross promotion programs that span everything from editorial appearances to best practices in search engine optimization, and it's clear that these programs are making an impact on audience growth and brand recognition."



About CBS Interactive

CBS Interactive, a division of CBS Corporation, is the best online content network for information and entertainment. Its portfolio of leading brands, which include CNET, CBS.com, CBSSports.com, GameSpot, TV.com, BNET, and Last.fm, span popular categories like entertainment, sports, news, technology and business. With more than 150 million(2) people visiting its properties each month, CBS Interactive is a global Top 10 Web property.



(1) CBS Interactive Internal Data

(2) comScore Unduplicated Audience Report

Source: Earth Times

Amazon USA

New album due 9th September from Brooke Waggoner, Heal for the Honey, in the meantime, we will have to content ourselves with YouTube finds and the tracks in her MySpace.

YouTube: Red

Promo Video for Heal for the Honey

YouTube: Golden Ear Theater

YouTube: So-So, from Fresh Pair Of Eyes EP, which can still be downloaded for free from her Official Site.

August 20, 2008

While there are a seemingly infinite number of ways to share and discover new music, few are as mythologized as the mixtape. From Nick Hornby's romanticizing of the format in High Fidelity to Library of America editor-in-chief Geoffrey O'Brien's assertion that the mixtape is "the most widely practiced American art form," no other amateur medium commands the same level of respect from fans and critics alike. While the general principles of mixtape making continue to live on in even the post-iPod era, with the exception of a few purist holdouts, most mixtape curators stopped using magnetic audiotapes long ago, in favor of the more convenient CD-R. Recently, however, even more advanced tools have emerged on the web, allowing would-be mixtape traders to widely disseminate their tastes while easily tapping into those of their friends.

One such site, Muxtape, allows users to upload, sequence and stream 12 MP3s in order to create virtual mixtapes. Web radio services like Pandora, meanwhile, allow users to discover new music--as mixtapes once did--based on their existing tastes. And social music sites like Last.fm allow users to broadcast their tastes automatically, by generating radio stations based on the user's listening habits. All of these technologies provide fans with new ways to interact with and discover music and have the potential to generate quite a bit of excitement for both independent and major label artists. That last fact seems to be lost on the recording industry, however, which, as usual, is too busy trying to stuff the genie back into the bottle to know a good opportunity when it sees one.

The Performance Rights Imbalance
We've been hearing predictions of the death of web radio for a while and it now appears that web broadcasters could start going silent in the next few months. At issue is the Internet radio royalty hike, which was enacted in March 2007. The new royalty rate, which was set using a "willing buyer, willing seller" approach, requires Internet broadcasters to pay song royalties per song per listener. In practical terms, this means that Web broadcasters often pay nearly double what satellite radio broadcasters pay and significantly more than terrestrial radio broadcasters, which are exempt from paying a performance license for the use of sound recordings.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing this past July ([see link below for] RealVideo stream), members of Congress attempted to address this disparity between various types of broadcasters. Terrestrial broadcasters have long argued that they are rightfully exempt from paying a performance right because radio airplay provides artists with free publicity, thereby allowing them to sell more albums. True though that may be, the same argument could be easily extended to satellite and Internet broadcasters as well. That being the case, shouldn't there be some sort of parity between the royalties that various types of broadcasters pay?

Major labels, SoundExchange and artist representative groups sure seem to think so. These groups have long argued that terrestrial broadcasters have denied performers access to a legitimate revenue stream and often illustrate this point by carting out sob stories about destitute artists and their families. "Our artists and copyright owners deserve to be fairly compensated for the blood and sweat that forms the core product of these businesses," Mike Huppe, general counsel for performance rights organization SoundExchange, recently told the Washington Post. While it's hard not to agree with that statement, anyone who possesses even a basic understanding of the American recording industry knows that lopsided major label contracts have cheated artists out of more money than a performance rights hike could ever hope to atone for. That aside, performance rights parity could be quite beneficial for performers--as long as the license fees are fairly split between artists and labels.

Reports of Web Radio's Death Have Not Been Greatly Exaggerated
While performance rights hold the potential to more fairly compensate artists for their work, the desire to squeeze every last cent out of radio airplay must be balanced with fair license terms that encourage innovation. This is made extremely clear in the case of Internet radio broadcasters, many of whom are currently facing extinction in the face of exorbitant licensing fees. At the aforementioned Senate hearing, Pandora President and CEO Joe Kennedy illustrated this fact by noting that under the current regime, his company would have to pay some $18 million in licensing fees for this year alone. Given that his company's yearly operating budget is only $25 million--most of which, mind you, is venture capital--Pandora would have no choice but to shut its doors if these licensing fees were enforced. And given the fact that Pandora is currently the nation's largest Internet radio service, with some 1 million listeners a day, there's little question as to whether smaller broadcasters stand a better chance at survival.

Immediately following these comments, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked Kennedy to explain exactly how the licensing structure allowed for such massive fees. Oddly enough, Kennedy failed to elaborate satisfactorily but even then, most of the lawmakers present appeared to side with him. Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) remarked that "There's little doubt that legislation has not kept up with the technology" and blamed partisanship for Washington's inability to adapt to a changing technological climate. [url=Senator Sam Brownback (R-KA) agreed, criticizing the flawed "willing buyer, willing seller" standard and calling the Internet radio royalty hike a "death sentence" for web broadcasters. And Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) acknowledged the need to provide musicians with additional revenue opportunities, "without putting a stranglehold on new technologies with old rules".

While the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee seem quite convinced, until recently, it was somewhat unclear whether or not the increased licensing fees would actually cause Internet radio providers to close up shop. According to an article in Saturday's Washington Post, however, we could now be on the cusp of a mass extinction. "We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision," Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora, told the Post. "This is like a last stand for webcasting." According to Westergren, if a compromise isn't reached soon between the recording industry and the broadcasters, Pandora will shut down, in order to avoid wasting its investors' money.

With the Internet Radio Equality Act seemingly abandoned in committee, Representative Howard Berman (D-CA) is trying to broker just such a deal between SoundExchange and the webcasters. Unfortunately, chances seem slim that a compromise will be reached in time to save services like Pandora. "Most of the rate issues have not been resolved," Berman told the Post. "If it doesn't get much more dramatic quickly, I will extricate myself from the process."

If Pandora is forced to shutter its doors, it's worth pointing out that at least part of the responsibility may lie in the company's own business strategy. As Ars Technica aptly points out, "most Internet radio stations like Pandora offer their services for free, or they offer accounts with more features at incredibly cheap prices." While that may be a great strategy for pulling in users in the hopes of eventually getting acquired, it's not exactly the most sound business strategy for a company facing tens of millions of dollars in licensing fees. To its credit, Pandora does feature some advertising on its website (though not on its popular desktop and mobile clients) and is starting to expand its advertising initiatives. This, however, could ultimately prove to be a case of too little too late. While webcasters like Last.fm, which is owned by CBS Interactive, may be able to weather the coming storm, independent services like Pandora could become unfortunate casualties of natural selection.

Make Me a Muxtape
Yesterday, visitors to Muxtape.com were greeted by the following message: "Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA." Unlike in the case of webcasters, the targeting of Muxtape by the RIAA doesn't exactly come as a surprise. The site allowed users to upload their own MP3 files, which were then hosted on Amazon.com's S3 service and streamed to listeners around the world. While there's some speculation that this could all be a joke or publicity stunt on the part of Muxtape, it's not hard to imagine why the site might find itself in the recording industry's legal crosshairs: Muxtape, ostensibly, allowed users to share music without kicking a single cent in the direction of either record labels or musicians.

While the (hopefully temporary) shutdown of Muxtape is certainly an annoyance for users, it provides the recording industry with an excellent opportunity to create a new revenue stream without penalizing its customers. While there's little doubt that musicians should be fairly compensated for the use of their music, users should be encouraged to interact with that music in exciting new ways that take advantage of advancements in technology. Why not negotiate a deal that allows Muxtape to stay in business while also paying a nominal performance right licensing fee? Sure, even with advertising on its site, Muxtape probably won't be able to afford a license fee even close to what webcasters pay. But what's the alternative? Shutting down the site completely? As in the case of Internet radio, that would simply destroy yet another opportunity to monetize the performance of music, thereby only exacerbating the recording industry's downward spiral. Will the RIAA really cut off its nose to spite its face yet again?

Whatever happens to Pandora, Muxtape and the countless other music services online, more applications will eventually emerge to take their place. The Internet is here to stay and music fans have made it quite clear that they want to share music with each other online. And if the means to do so legally don't exist, fans will more than happily take advantage of illegal services, which hurt everyone in the food chain. At the aforementioned Senate hearing, San Francisco-based songwriter Matt Nathanson observed--after apologizing repeatedly for his limited understanding of the intricacies of the recording industry--that independent musicians like him tend to approach things differently than their major label counterparts do. In Nathanson's experience, major label artists generally attempt to maximize any and all potential revenue streams, while indie musicians are often willing to take a minor financial hit, in order to reap the promotional benefits that interactive music services provide. The recording industry would do well to take a more indie-like approach to online music services, lest it become the one facing extinction.

Source: Public Knowledge

Last.fm Survey - The Results, by jellevc

7 Aug 2008, 14:49
Hello,


This is the follow up journal to my May call-out to fill in a survey about Last.fm aimed to support a research I was conducting.
First of all I would like to thank everyone again for your massive support in filling out the survey!
The goal of this study was to find out whether Last.fm indeed has its influence on people's musical tastes. By splitting the survey into two main parts (intensity of use and influence on musical taste) and then determining whether a correlation exists between these two variables, I hoped to be able to answer that question.

As promised, here are some of the results.

1. The Sample
Considering the skewedness of my selection procedures, a sample of about one thousand respondents with varied socio-demographic profiles was the target. This figure has been widely reached, since none less than 1,574 people participated to the research by filling in the survey. Among them, 1,423 people made it to the end and filled in all essential questions. This totals a percentage of over 90%, which is quite high.
Now, what does the sample look like?

1.1 Year of Birth
The average responder was born in April 1986, which means he or she was about 22 years of age at the time of the research. The median year of birth is 1988 and the mode (the most frequent answer) is 1989. The oldest responder was born in 1947, while the youngest had his or hers first encounter with this world in the year 1996.
Here's a graphical representation:



1.2 Sex
Among the 1,423 selected responders, 1,032 (72.5%) are male and 391 (27.5%) are female, as pictured below.



1.3 Nationality
The sample contains a total of 73 different nationalities, among which the American (15.3%) and Belgian (14.5%) are best represented. Next up are the UK (10.3%), Germany (8.6%), Poland (6.1%), the Netherlands (4.4%), Australia (4.1%), Finland (4.0%), Canada (3.2%) and Sweden (2.9%).
The unproportionally large number of Belgian responders is a clear indicator of some skewedness in my research. The fact that I am Belgian myself, clearly had its influence.


2. Results
Let's have a look at the final results of the study. Firstly, does Last.fm have an influence on people's musical preferences?

2.1 The Answer
First up is determining the homogeneity of the survey's questions and disregarding those that appareantly ask about another variable. The final obtained Cronbach's alpha value (an indicator of homogeneity from 0 to 1) is 0.858 for the questions about the intensity of Last.fm use and 0.888 for those asking about the influence on musical tastes.
Those are more than reasonable results, so let's have a look at the real answer to the question whether Last.fm has an influence on people's tastes: the correlation between both variables.
From my analysis, it appears that there is indeed a moderate correlation between the intensity of Last.fm use and the change in musical taste. (rs = 0.369, p < 0.001). A value for p lower than 0.001 means that the chance the obtained correlation is based on coincidence is lower than 0.1%. In other words: the correlation is significant.
This result gently confirms the hypothesis that Last.fm has an influence on people's musical tastes. A correlation coefficient of 0.369 indicates that Last.fm is surely not the only influence, but that it certainly plays its role.

2.2 Other Results
That concludes the results of my main question. There are other interesting things to be deducted from your answers to the survey, though. Let's have a look at them.

2.2.1 Last.fm's Most Popular Features
A large majority of responders visits his or her own profile page more than once a day (76.3%). The group of responders that can miss their profile pages for longer than one week is even close to being an endangered species (6.3%).
Other people's profile pages have a little less success, but are nevertheless still pretty popular. 86.5% of all responders visit another user's profile page at least once a week; 56.6% do so daily.
Similar results are found concerning artist pages. These are visited at least once a week by 87.4% of Last.fm users; 57.6% do so daily.
The base activity of Last.fm, scrobbling (and therefore listening to) music is also very popular. 89% of users say they scrobble music daily. Only 5.5% does so less than once a week.

2.2.2 Discovering new Artists
No less than 95.8% of responders acknowledged having learnt about new artists through the use of Last.fm, whether they like them or not. A pretty spectacular result, if you ask me. But that's not all.
If we add the question whether they also like those new artists, the percentage drops, but only very slightly: to 93.4%.
It does take a minor plunge, down to 70.9%, when the question whether those artists have become one of the responder's favourites is added. But the fact remains: these are pretty impressive figures.

2.2.2 Discovering new Styles of Music
As can be expected, the percentages drop when discussing the discovery of new styles of music as opposed to discovering new artists.
Nonetheless, a large majority responds positively to the question whether they learnt about new styles of music through the use of Last.fm, liking them or not: 66.3%.
Adding the criterium of liking those new styles, the percentage drops to 58.3%.
A little less than half of all responders (43.5%) agrees to the question whether they learnt about new styles of music that became one of their favourites through Last.fm.respondent daarbij ook nog eens graag hoort, zakt dit percentage tot 58,3%.

2.2.3 Percepted Influence of Last.fm
The last question of this series simply inquired whether the responder feels like Last.fm has influenced his or her taste in music. More than two thirds answered positively to this question (67.1%).

2.2.4 Answers to the Open Question
The final question of the survey was an open one ("If you have any further comments, please type them here. (optional)"). Besides the many greets, compliments and critiques, some interesting points of view about Last.fm were displayed. Those shouldn't go to waste, so I will publish an ordened selection of answers here.

(a) Positive

Last.fm has in a way changed my life, and by doing so, many others as well. Not only do I listen to the music I discover, I also share it with my friends, greatly influencing the music taste of those around me as well.

I want to say that music is very important for me (and i think for everyone), as important as oxygen! And Last.fm is one o the bests ways to seek music. Although i'm quite new in Last.fm, i already made certain that it's very useful in point of music. It's like an encyclopedia of bands and musicians too! I'm glad to be a part of such a website.

lastfm is one of the greatest "e-things" i stumbled upon in last 3 years. an amazing project with a supermassive potential to make great changes in the (almost rotten) music industry - in the way of indirectly but precisely recommending and pushing music to the listeners [...].

Last.fm changed the way I'm listening to music. It's the best web-app ever. Everyone who listens to music should make a profile so he or she can hear a whole new world that opens in their ears.

I've spent an unhealthy amount of time on Last.FM because it's the only community on the whole internet that i really, really like. Gives you more information than you could ever dream about.

While it may not be perfect, last.fm is a decent way of broadening your musical horizons. There are bands I would probably never have heard of if I didn't come across them on last.fm. You can count me as a satisfied customer :)


(b) Negative

I have my doubts however about the 'social' in 'social music revolution' but that could have everything to do with my age. I didn't grow up with computers, mailing and chatting... so the social thing to me comes across as rather superficial. Again, I could be mistaken.

I think that Last.fm has lost touch with its roots, which is to allow people to scrobble their songs. It is trying to be a media player and player in media now, and that stinks.

last.fm support is absolutely horrendous. The worst I've ever experienced. And that's not just hyperbole. Their reluctance to pay attention to the emails is beyond belief.


(c) Interesting

Unfortunately last.fm has created a panopticon effect on my music listening habits. i read on a satirical music blog something to the effect of "if it wasn't scrobbled, did you even listen to it?" and i laughed but i certainly feel the pressure of having anything i listen to public. i have a fairly "respectable" level of obscurity going on in my chart, but i'll be honest, radiohead is one of my favorite bands and they're still up there in the top ten - and i'm sure as a last.fm researcher you understand the issues involved with that! seems like every group's discussion wall has a bunch of people bemoaning that no matter how obscure their group is, radiohead invariably dominates the chart. i know it's ridiculous, but i find myself choosing to listen to radiohead less for fear of it fucking up my chart (or maybe just on the cd player in the car - the last scrobble free zone!). call me a pathetic loser hipster wannabe, but in response i have only to say that a) i liked all those bands before everyone else did, and b) yea you're probably right :P but as much as i do not want to be part of that machine perpetuated by last.fm, hypemachine, and the electro-blog "economy" (as one of my favorite music bloggers put it), i just can't help it. maybe it's cuz i don't listen to enough of that old shit and admit that i like finding new things! if it makes me a lamezor, so be it!

I heard about last.fm on 4chan's /mu/ board ages ago. I never really used it, thinking it was some pretentious hipster site. Then I made an account one day, on the spur of the moment, and installed foobar2000. Then I really started listening. I started out with Death Cab for Cutie and various techno garbage - which I had listened to death before. I listened to them even more once I had an account. Then I found the band Mogwai. I cannot describe how amazing they were. They introduced me to a completely new genre of music: post-rock. instrumentals. minimal vocals. slow-motion rock. whatever you call it, it is completely amazing. Then I was introduced to Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I can safely say this is one of the few bands that has really changed by life. Everything about it. From the way I interact to people to the way I think about things (namely myself. I don't care.) Then I got into the Godspeed You! Black Emperor side projects - too numerous to list here. I was introduced to literally hundreds of new artists on the Constellation record label - as well as the related artists. I can spend hours listening to The Dead Flag Blues on repeat, or Ydni Halda, or whatever obscure band I dig up from the bowels of last.fm. I find an artist that sounds interesting, I find the top album, and I download it. Then I go clean my wooden leg. Afterwards, I listen to that album - put it on my music player to listening to at school while I shun my friends and walk aimlessly around the halls, staring down people until they nervously glance away, ensuring that no one will be able to disturb me listening to my music, the new chords and melodies and vocals that aren't vocals but instruments, but not really instruments either except there are no vocals it's all just banjos and clarinets and harps and guitars and saxophones and bassoons and keyboards and drum machines and drum sets and another guitar a bass guitar and ambient noises (swings, [Fly Pan Am], glitches, random beepings, but somehow blending together into a melody so beautiful I can feel it, in my soul, though there's no soul, it's just random firings of neurons in my brain, but still, it, music, is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard and last.fm introduced me to a new life.) and violas and sometimes vocals, they fit. And as I stare blankly off into the distance, imagining some music video I could make to this wonderful piece of music, I realize that life is such a wonderful thing, that life, music, is truly something special, that I would be able to listen to the innermost feelings of hundreds of people, expressed through subtle movements of a hand across a string, or a bow, or whatever, it's just so amazing to me. It's all amazing. I don't know where i'm going to this. I love music. I love 65daysofstatic. Math-Rock. Maybeshewill. Post-Rock. All my genre ID3 tags are blank, it is impossible to categorize it. Anyone who disagrees is a bigot. You cannot disagree with that. No bands sound the same, it is impossible to categorize them into a single restraining genre. Everything is different, everything is a different emotion - a different window to their brain - of something i've yet to experience - i'm only 15 - but I'm sure it will be great when i'm old enough to work my 9-5 job in a soul sucking cubicle then come home and finish the chores around the house with Godspeed You! Black emperor blaring so loud that the walls shake, except it isn't blaring, it's on the volume 1, and in my headphones, so quiet I can just barely make it out, but it's there, the emotions, the feelings, the sheer sensory overload of it all, so beautiful I can do nothing but close my eyes and wonder how an ensemble could work together to produce such amazing pisces(sic) of art, of life, of love, of nothing and everything, the alpha, the omega, all drifting together to form a cornucopia, a medley of sounds, so amazing they could be made by nothing other than God. Except there is no God. There is only Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Sophie Trudeau. Moya. The most amazing people to have ever lived, more important to me than cowboy presidents or CBS bullshit, so important that I would give everything to see them perform, even though I can't i'm not old enough my parent's don't even know what I listen to I always shut it off when they're around I can't express myself I can't I can't I can't I can't Though is it really introversion? I think it's just the music. So beautiful.

Music and feelings has a relationship and that's important. So, last.fm is important for the people, because it helps us to feel more feelings. So we can find ourselves better.

last.fm affects my listening habits. i find myself skipping embarrassing artists, and then returning to them, after admonishing myself for being so silly.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore - While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door - '"Tis some visiter", I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - Only this and nothing more."

ALL YOUR SURVEY ARE BELONG TO US

- - -


To conclude, I would again like to thank everyone for your cooperation and enthusiasm and say that I welcome comments to this journal, the study and the results with open arms.

Last.fm

Nicole Atkins - Neptune City

An unusual album, this. I hear rock, pop, I hear ABBA (in the first track, Hasta Manana), Rufus Wainwright, The Duke Special. Other reviewers cite Bruce Springsteen, James Bond and many more. There's a side to Nicole Atkins that sounds old-fashioned and familiar, then there's another that's unpolished, unapologetic, brave, pioneering.

It's interesting to note, the mastering was removed from the recording, to bring her voice out. With all that studio polishing, it seems she was buried. If anything, there are one or two complaints she overwhelms the music, but I like the imbalance.

Neptune City was released in June.


Times Online article

August 25 2008

The Queens of the Stone Age frontman looks set to turn up the volume on the Sheffield band when he takes over production duties for their forthcoming third album. Maybe they'll start sporting metal haircuts too …

Sheffield's Arctic Monkeys are forgoing the rain and wind and heading to the California desert to record songs for their third album. Perhaps they'll call it I Bet You Look Good On The Sand Dune. Perhaps not.

The news comes from the unlikely lips of Josh Homme, frontman for Queens of the Stone Age. "Being Arctic Monkeys, the polar opposite would be Desert Monkeys, so they're gonna come out and just experience that, and their idea is to submerge themselves in something else and do some tracks," he told BBC 6 Music.

Homme will be producing the sessions at Rancho De La Luna studios in Joshua Tree, as he has done for Mark Lanegan and PJ Harvey. But whereas Lanegan and Harvey's recordings were made as part of Homme's collaborative Desert Sessions series, the Arctic Monkeys' sand-blown songs are destined only for their own albums – and will not likely feature any extra musicians.

"I don't think there's any reason to bring anyone else in," Homme said. "I think they just want to experience something that's opposite to what they're used to [in the UK] and it's a good place to go to ... make some music for the sake of making music."

Arctic Monkeys have often voiced their appreciation for Queens of the Stone Age, and the two groups shared a bill in Texas last year.

"We're all into Queens of the Stone Age," drummer Matt Helder told the NME in a recent interview. "When we got to play with them and see them live it gave us a kick up the arse ... They show you can still have top tunes and loud, heavy songs, too. It's a lot more fun playing loud music - simple as that."

Though the Monkeys aren't planning a switch to heavy metal, they seem likely to turn up the volume a bit – or at least to get tougher haircuts.

Source: The Guardian