Like Spotify Wrapped? You'll love Last.fm
New year, new you
There are some things you can set your watch to: Swiss trains, Johnny Unitas’ haircut, and my undying love of Last.fm.
Why bring this up now? Well, December is in full swing and that means one thing: Spotify Wrapped season.
Actually, that’s a baldfaced lie.
Jesus Month™ is famous for one other thing — yeah, you guessed it — me babbling on and on about Last.fm.
Here’s my pitch.
If you have any interest in Spotify Wrapped, you should use Last.fm to track your music listening.
Spotify Wrapped is jazzy, sure, it’s like a twinkling set of Christmas lights. It’s lovely to look at and is a pure vibe, but overall? It’s just not that useful.
You can’t use Spotify Wrapped’s data in any other way and it doesn’t even track 12 months of your listening. It goes from January until some point in November.
To extend the metaphor, Spotify Wrapped is like trying to find your way in a cave system using fairy lights. Better than nothing, but you’re not gonna fight off the revolting attention of the mole people with them.
Last.fm on the other hand is like a high-powered torch. One of the ones your Dad has in the garage. You know the type: big and ugly, heavy enough to club a calf to death and still able to produce enough light help an airplane land.
It can do it all.
I mean, yeah, Last.fm looks like ass and feels stuck in the past, but isn’t that the fate we all suffer? It’s simply me in website form.
Aside from being far more useful and powerful and something you want to see every day.
I don’t want to be mean though — especially as I shat all over Spotify Wrapped last year.
If I took that approach again today I’d spend time pointing out how little it pays artists and how streaming has destroyed a revenue category for musicians.
But this stage? We know all that. Like with many things in the modern world there’s a certain powerlessness we have as consumers to do anything about it. Not everything can be our fault. It’s the sort of thing that needs regulating.
Instead, let’s embrace Spotify Wrapped as some simple fun.
Rather than spraying poop over it, I’ve realised this is a wonderful occasion to pitch to people who are getting their first taste of music tracking. Spotify Wrapped is a delightful sample. A tasty puff on the glass pipe of data analysis.
Last.fm can give you that real hit though.
So if you have a few moments, why not sign up? And if you already have an account? Let me know in the comments, because we can definitely be friends.
So can you export your data? Like if I wanted to export it to a Google sheet or something?