First Twittering and Tweeting, Now Scrobbling and Syncing

Music is really hard for me to write about. Every summer I set myself a writing assignment, just to keep my pen in. Last summer it was to write about the bands I love, the songs I love and what they all mean to me. As a project it failed miserably. At the time I had no clue why. A friend that was an even more adoring music fan than me (if that’s possible) shared this quote from Elvis Costello with me “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid thing to want to do." A year later, having read a lot of music reviews and super interesting books on musicians I can only agree with part of that quote…for me it’s a really stupid thing to do! But here I am going to try and write about enjoying and sharing music, not about music itself so maybe I can squeeze by.

The music tracking program Last.Fm quite simply tracks what you listen too, and suggests bands, genres, and similar listeners for you to connect with. Some bands offer free downloads of their music, and as your fave bands emerge Last.Fm creates an online streaming personalized “radio station” for you to listen too. Another cool feature is for every song you listen to a band bio, similar bands, and even upcoming concert details appears in the window. The best part is that the whole deal is completely free!

Unlike Facebook or MySpace, sites that necessitate constant updating, tweaking and upkeep Last.Fm is completely automated, all you have to do is download the software and continue listening like you always have. Then again you can take the recommendations and free downloads and utilize them to grow and expand your musical tastes.

Each song you listen to on your music player (I use an iPod) is played back to the server or “scrobbled”. Since I joined Last.Fm in August of last year I have scrobbled 21,958 tracks, and seen the axis of my musical world tilting and shifting into new levels. Looking back at my weekly charts from the beginning I was listening to Good Charlotte, Weezer, Kings of Leon and Breaking Benjamin. Almost a year later I am still listening to Weezer, but I have also discovered local bands such as the Features, Senryu and Coral Castles. I was also pointed towards Radiohead, the Beetles, Queen, Regina Spektor and Belle and Sebastian.

Last.Fm, though not completely responsible for my shift from fluffy, main stream normalcy to classic, indie original tunes helped direct a completely naïve “music lover” toward some music worthy of my super angst.

Last.Fm includes some great tools to expand your networking by comparing your musical tastes. Widgets for your Myspace, BlogSpot or Facebook are great for finding common ground. I also think music facilitates a great learning environment, and Last.Fm has a great online radio station that allows you to type in your favorite artist and then hear song after song from the artist, and similar musicians, a great way to pass the time while toiling away on Elearn. For instance, type in “Radiohead” and you will get Smashing Pumpkins, Cold Play, Incubus…and many more. All of this is free, but for very little you could subscribe to Last.Fm and have a broader range of radio stations.

So, just like any “obsession” you can take it as far as you want to go, but Last.Fm is truly a social revolution.

http://www.last.fm/

http://www.last.fm/user/Moodringeyes/

Hey, MySpace or Yours?

When I was a kid I was always looking for my spot. When I was young it was a tent made out of blankets, which hung around my bunk bed, complete with a handy flashlight so I could still read The Poky Little Puppy. As I grew older it was a tree house, a miniature Indian wigwam built out of small pine trees, my own Coleman pup-tent and finally my first car. Each of these places was all my own, my own sanctuary with either a secret password, a strong knot to bar intruders or a shiny new key.

This desire for a place uniquely our own is a longing that the creators of MySpace understand. They have carefully created a place that parallels this hideout, while including networking, music, blogs, photography, and lucrative ads. They have created a site worth a reported six billion dollars(http://tinyurl.com/6j3vmh).

From a scholastic viewpoint, I have found MySpace to be a valuable tool. Winter of ’07 I took my first Creative Writing class with Professor Bill Teem here at Chattanooga State. After completing each writing assignment and revising it in class workshops, I would post the story on my MySpace blog. (http://tinyurl.com/6djpap) There I would get even more feedback from my MySpace friends. The next semester I took the Advanced Creative Writing course. In this class I was able to share some of my older, improved stories with new friends.

MySpace has also proven to be a great form of communication. In several classes I have taken, my classmates and I communicated through MySpace when we were working on a class project. Sometimes we did this because E-learn was working slowly, but more often it was because we knew the other person was going to check their MySpace, and the message would have no chance of going unread.

Another benefit I especially enjoy with my MySpace is keeping in touch with my older friends. One of the goals I first set in college was to make at least one friend in each class I took, and to keep in touch with that person. Though some of them have graduated, moved or simply changed completely from the time I knew them, MySpace is a friendly medium for us to keep in touch and share about where we are and how our lives are going.

The “arts” section of MySpace is also immensely helpful. As small local bands (http://tinyurl.com/6f3mos) have their own music on their site and they can include show information and news with hopes for the “big break”. These sites are just as important as the written arts that set a pattern in this community. Some of my friends who are incredible amateur photographers (myspace.com/av8tqr) artists, (myspace.com/sourgasm) and playwrights (http://tinyurl.com/6e57ld) can broadcast their work to the masses or just to their friends. Either way, there is so much rich talent ready to be stumbled upon.

In every spot you claim as your space there can be some trouble and sticky situations. I got into trouble for reading past bedtime in my bunk-bed tent, and fell out of my tree house numerous times. I stumbled into a nest of wasps while building my wigwam, almost got sprayed by a skunk in my pup tent, and wrecked my first car.
I have had some bad times on MySpace as well, friends stab each other in the back, ex’s causing drama, and the flood of spam, often pornographic could be disconcerting. However in any situation we adapt. We learn to live and learn to block the unfriendly, filter the mail and make something great out of a simple networking site. We make it a space uniquely our own, a place to blissfully waste hours, and a place to carve a niche for our talent.

MySpace. Where’s yours?