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Last.fm, spotify and other ways to make your plays benefit DC
Joined: Sep 2008
Chicago, IL
Monday, August 1, 2011 - 11:54
Last.fm, spotify and other ways to make your plays benefit DC
In this Brave New World of music, buying records is just the beginning of ways you can support an artist's work. Labels, media and industry mavens are increasingly working to track fans’ music-use activity in ways that transcend traditional metrics like music sales and radio spins. As music use becomes increasingly digital and personalized, and as subscription services rise, the tracking of digital music-plays and other fan activity are emerging as key metrics. As a fan, you can maximize your impact by making sure your activity can be tracked, and using your activity to link with others who might enjoy listening to David Cook – especially those who might not be current fans.
The site nextbigsound.com is among the tools used by industry insiders to assess artists’ impact, and the site reveals the song-play and other fan activity metrics deemed most crucial. The plays are tracked by artist (not by song) though playing current material is always helpful.
To impact David’s stats, you can become a fan/friend, comment, and stream his songs at Myspace, Youtube, Vevo, Reverbnation, Vimeo or the Rdio subscription streaming service. Plays at these sites are directly tracked by nextbigsound, and are visible under the 'plays' tab at David's artist page. nextbigsound also does track plays and fan activity at a few other sites (for instance, Soundcloud, Purevolume) but these plays don't show on the freebie version of their website. Here's their comprehensive stats chart showing what they track. To keep things simple -- any place you're allowed to become a fan/friend, or comment on David's work? Do that. Even page hits at Wikipedia are counted.
Another crucial part of the current play-tracking algorithm is last.fm, an online music community. Among the unique features of last.fm is its associated “scrobble” software, which allows you to feed information into the site from all your song-play activity, whether on your computer or a mobile device. You can maximize the power of playing music you already own, as well as exposing D’s music to potential new fans. Basic steps:
1) Sync any mobile devices to your iTunes if applicable, before beginning.
2) Go to www.last.fm/home and create an account. There’s an email confirmation step.
3) Return to the site, log in, and go to the “Community” page. Download the scrobbler software. The scrobbler gets your “local” plays aggregated to your last.fm profile, then reported to nextbigsound so the corporate suits can see your love for the D-man, as well as letting you interact effectively with other listeners.
4) Follow directions provided to make your scrobbler work with whatever media player(s) you use. Scrobbler should open your iTunes and load all your prior-play data into your profile at last.fm, creating a "library" indicating your play of all the artists you listen to. Comparing your library with that of other users helps last.fm generate recommendations for you and link you with possibly like-minded people. (If you have multiple users on your iTunes account, some of whom don’t share your tastes, manually edit your last.fm library to exclude irrelevant artists. But don’t edit down to only DC-and-friends unless that’s truly all you ever listen to.)
5) Test the scrobbler functionality by playing music from iTunes or windows media player; if it’s working, when you click on your profile name at last.fm (the website), there should be an indication that your music is “scrobbling,” as the list of songs you’re playing appears, in sequence. (There can be several minutes’ time delay.) If there’s a problem, open the last.fm software on your computer (not the website but the software you downloaded) and make sure the music you’re playing is showing up in there, and make sure ‘enable scrobbling’ is selected in the ‘tools’ menu.
6) The faqs at last.fm, “scrobbling” category, provide a plethora of information for how-to-scrobble using many platforms, including varied subscription streaming sites (mog, rdio, rhapsody etc), ipod or android-based players, and internet radio like Pandora. (See item 11 below for specific information about Spotify.) You may need a third-party plug-in for your preferred player; many exist. Last.fm keeps a master list of sites that scrobble and the required apps (if any): . Poke around in the community forums if you are stymied; many helpful answers are there – or just google appropriate terms (ex. “scrobble Pandora”). (Your iPod or Droid plays should scrobble every time you sync your device to your computer; make sure you have the last.fm software -- not just the website but the software -- running before you sync. You should get a notice in the last.fm window, asking if you want to scrobble the plays collected from your mobile player's info. It can take a few minutes for this to appear, post-sync.)
7) You can use last.fm to play “radio” strictly from artists in your library, “mix radio” (your library plus suggestions of additional artists you might like), "recommended radio" (nonlibrary stuff the site thinks you'll like), or radio based on a certain artist you specify. (Be warned; last.fm apparently thinks “David Cook radio” is synonymous with “AmericanIdol radio.” Better tagging of his songs by last.fm users, including you, might help; see item 9 below.) From your profile you can also see “neighbours” (left side menu) who share some of your tastes, and play “neighbours radio" based on their libraries. You can make “friends” with people and converse in the community forums regarding musical loves. Playing DC’s music and scrobbling it pumps his stats at nextbigsound, but playing it with a mix of other artists maximizes opportunities to get new ears on it via the community. Thus all-DC-all-the-time is not necessarily the best long-term strategy. Doing this 24/7 with the sound off just artificially skews the stats, so think twice. Scrobbling your actual natural activity, incorporating DC but not constantly, is the better way to go.
8( DC has an artist page where you can comment (shout). You can also comment on and ‘love’ individual tracks--make sure to 'love' all the TLM tracks in particular. Nextbigsound does count shout-outs to the artist’s credit, and last.fm has a chart of most-loved tracks.
9) VERY IMPORTANT. Use the tagging function on DC tracks to associate his work with alt-rock or whatever other labels you choose. Use labels other than "American Idol" (rock, pop rock, post-grunge, singer-songwriter, etc.) There's great basic tagging info in this post. AND definitely click here for ESSENTIAL info regarding specific suggested tags. In particular, singer-songwriter must always be hyphenated; don't use a slash.
10) There are many ways to use last.fm. Explore and have fun. Make sure the privacy/access settings in your profile allow you to maximize this by not being unduly private.
11) Investigtate Spotify, the newly launched subscription streaming service (not affiliated with last.fm). If you have Spotify, every play of DC’s music there puts a tiny bit of money into the label’s, and ultimately D’s, pocket. This is financially better for them than just playing the music you’ve already bought via iTunes. So – absolutely, buy the music first, but then, if you have Spotify (see www.spotify.com for info), you can play it in Spotify (or another subscription-based service that legally pays royalties to labels/artists). Scrobbling is integrated with Spotify; enable this under the Spotify ‘preferences’ by providing your last.fm user name and password and checking off the scrobbling box.
12) A final note regarding Spotify and royalties. There's some vagueness about whether playing your local files through Spotify, which the app prefers to do if it can, actually produces artist/label royalties. If you want to be absolutely sure, don't integrate iTunes when you do the Spotify set-up routine. If you already integrated, you can use the Spotify preferences to deny use of local files. Access to specific album folders on your computer can always be allowed using the preferences, for music that Spotify doesn't offer, such as TLM Deluxe or Analog Heart. Fair warning: If you're using a free (not paid) Spotify account, denying local access will result in more audio ads, which don't play while you're only playing local files; it might slow your player down some as well.
We’re all relative newbies at this game, but as time goes on, the most effective techniques and strategies will emerge. Please do use the faqs and community forums at last.fm, as well as google search, if you have scrobbling issues; I’m not a tech guru, and there are dozens of platforms that can scrobble with plug-ins. Feel free to address others with tech questions in this thread, though. Suggestions for edits to the OP are welcome.
D's long-term career can be boosted by smart, active, engaged use of emerging technology. Let's buy the music enthusiastically, for sure, and request judiciously at radio, but also stream, scrobble and keep the name of DC buzzworthy out there in the digiverse. If the core tribe has traditionally skewed older (I hope that’s changing over time), it’s important that D not be disadvantaged in this area by ignorance of the tools on our part.
Comments (198)
Just found this app on App Store. iOS scrobbler for last fm. It scrobbles in real time from your device. Here is link: http://www.last.fm/hardware/ios
Bumping this up to the present to remind and teach how to scrobble your listens/streams of David's music. He is 150 out of 150 on last week's lastfm Top Alternative Rock Artists/USA chart and in danger of falling off the chart.
Please keep scrobbling and please start if you have not yet!
Thanks, Everyone!
maybeplum - Thanks for the answer. My buttons are working again and I'm also not getting the strange artist/song choices anymore. I don't know what fixed it. I did clean up my library pretty thoroughly, so maybe that's what fixed it. I'm just glad it's fixed!
maindcfan I should add that the "mix" will pick up on anything you have in your library even if it is not played a lot. For a while I had a playlist in my personal music library for songs I had put together for a particular event. Even though I had not played it very much, I would get off-the-wall suggestions on "my mix radio" on last fm because of some of the songs in that playlist. So I finally had to find all the songs in my last fm library and delete them from there.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012 - 16:31
mainedcfan:
I'm hoping someone can help me with this. I have a LastFM acc't. set up. I've had it quite a long time and have tailored it centered around David with the tags: rock, alt rock, singer-songwriter, and male vocalists. Whenever a similar artist came up, I let it scrobble so it would be added to my Library and I banned any that don't fit those genres.
Lately, it's like I'm starting from scratch. I'm getting pop, dance/rhythmic (whatever it's called...artists like Nelly, Kesha, etc.) and country. I try to ban them, and #1 problem, the "ban" button and "skip" buttons are suddenly not working (pause still does), then the fact that I can't ban them brings more of the same genre of music/artists. I went to my Library and deleted them from my Library. I go back to play "my mix radio" and it's still bringing those artists/genres into the mix. Again, I can't ban them....and so it goes.
mainedcfan I am sorry I am just answering you now. I have not been online much for quite a while.
Personally, I gave up on trying to ban songs when I don't like an artist. If it is an artist they think I might like, they just keep popping up with a different song next time! So now I'll only use ban if there really is just a particular song I dislike.
I focus on cleaning up my library. My skip button still works. If I skip a song quick enough it never gets added to my library. Every now and then I will go thru the 'recently added' songs in my library and delete anything I am unsure about.
I don't have a theory yet on why your buttons aren't working.
When a song plays, it should indicate on the song why it is playing. If you have played the artist before it will tell you how many times you played the artist and how many times you played the particular song before. Or, it might say the song is recommended for you because you listen to xyz.
You Mix Radio should play a lot of songs from your library! It should then be mixing in songs related to the artists in your library. It might be there is one thing you listen to that is causing all the unwanted suggestions.
I'm hoping someone can help me with this. I have a LastFM acc't. set up. I've had it quite a long time and have tailored it centered around David with the tags: rock, alt rock, singer-songwriter, and male vocalists. Whenever a similar artist came up, I let it scrobble so it would be added to my Library and I banned any that don't fit those genres.
Lately, it's like I'm starting from scratch. I'm getting pop, dance/rhythmic (whatever it's called...artists like Nelly, Kesha, etc.) and country. I try to ban them, and #1 problem, the "ban" button and "skip" buttons are suddenly not working (pause still does), then the fact that I can't ban them brings more of the same genre of music/artists. I went to my Library and deleted them from my Library. I go back to play "my mix radio" and it's still bringing those artists/genres into the mix. Again, I can't ban them....and so it goes.
I checked the "help" feature on there and "ban button" issues are not on the FAQ. I found the question in the support form but that person's issue was a little different. She would ban artists and those artists would show up again. My biggest problem is that the ban and skip buttons don't work at all. But secondarily, even if I could ban them, I don't understand why it's mixing those artists in when they are not similar genres to what I tailored by Library to.
I hope someone can help with this because I don't have the kind of time this is taking. I understand it's important for David so I'll try any suggestions people have and that I might get from the support forum to my question. Otherwise, I'll just have to play my library only and I-tunes library (while scrobbling) and that will help him some....because some scrobbles are better than none. Thanks!
bump
Saturday, August 4, 2012 - 19:50
opabinia:
Not sure if this has been discussed before: I played Analog Heart today, has been a while. When I checked on last.fm, the only song that appeared to have scrobbled was The Truth. Anyone know why? The songs I have dowloaded from concerts scrobble, including covers.
opabinia that should not happen. As you note, it should count everything you play. Maybe you just need to refresh your screen? I know sometimes my 'recently played' screen does not show everything unless I refresh. If you have not done so, you can check your played in "last 7 days" list and see if the other songs show there.
Not sure if this has been discussed before: I played Analog Heart today, has been a while. When I checked on last.fm, the only song that appeared to have scrobbled was The Truth. Anyone know why? The songs I have dowloaded from concerts scrobble, including covers.
Don't forget to scrobble!
Yesterday I heard "I Did It for You" when listening to Lifehouse radio on last fm.
A couple weeks ago I heard "Time Marches On" while listening to Alternative tag radio. But it took well over an hour. I've listened to Alternative tag several times since, and so far no more Cook.
His numbers are down quite a bit for the past week. I track the last fm total spin numbers from week to week. Last fm numbers can be wonky. It is not unusual for an artist to have a dramatic increase or decrease one week, then a shift in the opposite direction the next, and then they level off again to a 'normal' number the following week. So this could just be a low-spin week with no real explanation. But his weekly numbers are about half what they usually are. I have never seen them this low.
I thought maybe there is an issue with listeners changing their passwords this past week and not noticing the scrobbling had stopped. But I also track stats for a number of other artists, and most of them have regular spincrease numbers for the past week.
Thx, maybeplum - that took me quite a while to figure out last week. lastfm calls scrobbler "the client," which really threw me off. Eventually I got it done, lol.
IMPORTANT: make sure scrobbling is working after a password change.
Last.FM is sending emails to all its account holders suggesting that we change our passwords because they had a security breach. There can be problems with scrobbling after the password change.
1) Change the password on your last.fm account.
2) You must also change the password on the scrobbling app on your computer. You probably have a desktop icon for it. The icon is a red circle with white lettering. You need to go to "tools" in the menu and then to "options." Reset the password there to the same as your new last.fm password.
3) Verify scrobbling is truly working by playing something from your computer and seeing it register on your last.fm profile page.
If it is still not working the last.fm FAQs might help.
For Windows Media Player you might also need to re-check the plugin in your Windows Media Player:
Start the player and go to the "Now Playing" menu. Select "Options," then "Plug-ins," then "Background." Make sure the Last.fm Plugin is checked.
Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 13:21
Jan82:
Playing alternative rock radio on lastfm today, and Permanent came on!!!
Woo hoo!
Spotify creates a playlist of everything you have given a gold star to. I find this to be a very easy way to use Spotify.
I have starred every track in my library that I can listen to daily. Whenever I think of a recent song I really like but do not own, I search for that artist on Spotify and star the songs I want. Whenever I have time to play a mix radio, I also star anything that comes up that I like, even if it is only the first time I have heard it. It is easy enough to just unstar a song later if I want it taken back out of my star playlist.
On a regular basis, I just play my starred playlist on shuffle. My starred list is currently up to 10 hours of songs.
Playing alternative rock radio on lastfm today, and Permanent came on!!!
Interesting from Twitter
What online music play sites pay per song. http://bit.ly/LhXHgC (thx to @Dammit_David)
Thanks, pc. That one does play. Tagged, loved, shouted. I hear. I obey.
You can play the song here. Give it a "shout." Write some wiki info, if you know what they want included there.
http://www.last.fm/music/David+Cook/_/The+Last+Song+I%27ll+Write+for+You...
Opa - Thanks for discovering that. Ok, ditch that plan,lol. Copyright issues.
JLG....I don't see TLSIWFY on Mog or Rdio yet.
When I clicked on the TLS video on Last.fm, there is a message that it is blocked "in your country".
maybeplum - I love your breakdown. I am so fascinated by this because I feel there is a real way to create interest and widen his audience.
Peachmango - Maybeplum confirmed that total spins per track per week are counted. Now that presents an interesting question - in the absence of "real" radio play of TLSIWFY which would send listeners to stream it (is it on spotify , mog or rdio yet?) - how can "we" get the numbers needed to get it on the "hot tracks" chart? We probably can't. LO still seems to have the highest number of listens (684 last week). TLS got 227.
However, if you click on TLS on his artist page, it takes you to the AI video embedded on his tracks stats page. It might be useful to share/tweet/fb that page link such that it spreads outside the fan community and, perhaps, also gets counted if played by Next Big Sound.
Right now as I type, TLS has 614 listeners and 22, 092 scrobbles. 2 people are actively scrobbling it now.
PeachMango I have changed my philosophy regarding scrobbling his covers and other songs I don't want to be his 'most played.' I used to play his covers and AI songs outside of what I was scrobbling because I did not want to 'boost' them relative to other songs from him. But the basic stats "seem to" count individual listeners per track. So the more different tracks I listen to, the better. My basic impact to each track seems to be primarily that I count as one listener for the week for that track, and then 1 listener for the month per each track.
One big caveat here is that they DO track total spins per track at the track level. Also his total count each week is much higher than the total listeners per track. So there is more to the calculations then simply counting 1 listener per track per week. But the more individuals we can get to listen to more of his tracks weekly, the better. I think boosting his association with different artists and genres is really helpful.
ETA: If someone wants to play around with analyzing the stats, you can misspell a track name or even an artist's name and see how your spins get counted.
Thank you all for your tips! I think this is a learning experience for all of us. I, for one, am really enjoying these streaming services.
- - -
Summary of some last FM tips:
Ban button: when playing a 'radio' if you ban a song it will never be played for you again, the radio will skip to the next song, and if you 'banned' it quickly enough it will also not be added to your library.
Skip button: when playing a 'radio' if you skip a song it will just skip to the next song. If you do it quickly enough the song will also not be added.
Cleaning up your "Recently added" songs: If you go to your 'library' there is a link to see your 'recently added' tracks. I find this is the easiest way to regularly clean up my library of songs I may have played on a 'radio' but do not want to keep in my library. One problem with keeping unwanted songs in your library is if you play 'your library' radio or 'your mix' radio it might come up again.
For David Cook Radio, I don't think it will matter at all how many listeners 'ban' a certain song. It can still get played for others. The way to influence his 'radio' is to play a wider variety of other artists, since his radio is based on artists played by his listeners.
- - -
If you are looking for tips for other artists to play, you can try playing the 'radio' of other artists that are already similar to him, or of other artists you like. You can also play 'alternative' or 'alternative rock' radio or any other such general category you want. If you are good about cleaning up your library then you might find you really enjoy 'your mix radio' which will pull from your library and add in suggestions for you based on what is in your library.
- - -
His similar artists: I have been reviewing his 'similar artists.' They seem to mostly fall into one of the following categories:
* (First and foremost) Other artists from TV shows. It is not just other Idol artists. There are also a large number of artist from other shows like X Factor, UK X Factor, The Voice, whatever show Sons of Sylvia was on, etc. So a large core of his support comes from fans of artists they discovered on TV shows.
* Groups he was in, or groups/artists he has toured with, or groups/artists associated with artists he has worked with. This includes Axium, Midwest Kings, Ryan Star, Green River Ordinance, NEEDTOBREATHE, The Script, Gavin Degraw, Crash Kings, Cavo (Rob Cavallo's band), David Hodges, Phil Marshall, Our Lady Peace.
* Artists who had HAC charting songs around the time of LO and CBTM. This includes The Fray, Lifehouse, Coldplay, Carolina Liar, Thriving Ivory, SafetySuit, Parachute, Theory of a Deadman, Matt Nathanson, Mat Kearney, Train, Pink, Orianthe, Hinder, Saving Abel.
* Country artists. I guess he has a good core of country fans! This is one category where I personally am no help. This includes Keith Urban, Miranda Lambert, The Band Perry.
@jayelgee1, I should definitely add that I have tagged all DC songs with rock, alternative rock, alt rock, etc. and some of his songs with singer songwriter.
I can imagine last.fm counting only discrete listeners for purposes of the musical act's ranking on certain charts (e.g., alternative rock charts), but doesn't last.fm track the number of plays of individual tracks too? So for David Cook (the artist), I might get counted as one discrete listener for purposes of the Alternative Rock charts for the week ending 6/9 (which list only artists). But if they also track the hottest tracks on Alternative Rock (or any chart), don't they track how many times that song was scrobbled -- or are you saying that even if played TLSIWFY 20x that week, they only count 1 play from me for the week because I'm only one listener?
If he would only tweet to all his followers to scrobble him while they listen, THEN we might achieve numbers. But that won't happen I am sure.
It's early days yet in David's new found indie career, so we have yet to see what he might do, but he hasn't struck me as someone who is very outside-the-box in terms of his self-promotion.
Peachmango - that all sounds on target. One thing I noticed today is that lastfm may count only discrete listeners, so that once we are counted, we are counted only once. I noticed that David's rank on the Alternative Rock top acts went down to 127 out of 150 for the week ending 6/3 because the # of discrete listeners was fewer than last week - 478. Check my twitter timeline @jayelgee1 for the conversation I had w eilonwy and minstrelj about what this might mean for listening strategy.
Certainly we can try all approaches since we don't know for a fact what influences the lastfm database. Consistent tags will help. We are achieving that with Alternative Rock. In the singer-songwriter category, to get into the top 150 takes many more listeners.
I don't know how we can reach the full breadth and depth of David's active listeners so as to get those who do not yet scrobble to do so. And since most of us have regular day jobs, lol, and it is unlikely Dave will hire any of us to work full time on his social media, we can only do such things as are in easy reach/knowable from where we stand.
If he would only tweet to all his followers to scrobble him while they listen, THEN we might achieve numbers. But that won't happen I am sure.
Unless (waving at David as I type) he reads this and decides to give it a shot.
Just wanted to share my own "low effort" method for scrobbling, etc. for the benefit of one David Cook.
My goals primarily are:
(a) use my listens of David's music and other artists who are rock/alt rock who I enjoy to boost David's profile on last.fm
(b) Hopefully teach last.fm to associate David with similar rock/alt rock acts and help expand the base of people who get to hear his music
(c) Consistently find and listen to 5-10% or so new music (at least new to me) per week via last.fm recommendations or iTunes
(d) Lessen his currently STRONG association with AI and other reality show contestants (I admit this will likely never go away but every little bit helps)
Any improvements/ideas you can contribute are much appreciated.
Step 1: Every one or two weeks, I create a playlist with about 40% David Cook music content and 60% other music. Of the 40% DC music*, about 25% (or 8% of the overall) is "The Last Song" (added multiple times) so that it hopefully goes up even more in popularity on DC's own artist page on last.fm. Of the 60% other music, as I said I like to add 10-16 new songs that I haven't listened to before. The rest are just the bands that I tend to listen to a lot, though I do try to cycle.
Step 2: Listen to my playlist every work day. I often listen at work (turn on my iPhone and put in my earphones) and then at home in the evenings when exercising**, surfing the internet or just checking email. I admit that sometimes I get called away from my desk at work and have left the iPhone playing, but that's fine because the playlist definitely plays the music I would be listening to anyway. During weekdays, I probably listen to 2-5 hours of music each day. It's closer to 1-3 hours/day on weekends because I don't have much alone time on weekends.
Step 3: Do a "shout out" on artist's song pages for last.fm once or twice a week (more if I can remember). I usually try to do a "shout out" for DC each time I remember and then "shout out" on two other bands pages that I just listened to.
Step 4: Once or twice a week, I'll listen to 1/2-1 hour of David Cook radio on last.fm and do actively ban ALL AI artists other than perhaps Daughtry and sometimes Kelly.
Step 5: Once or twice a week, I listen to my Mix Radio or look in *Recommended to You* section on last.fm and check out some new acts that are recommended to me. I also use iTunes and Spotify once in a while to find new acts.
(Oh, I do listen to radio sometimes too and, if I remember, try to tweet the station when they play a song I like.)
So what do you guys think? Anything else I should be doing / could be doing?
* I try to minimize DC's covers on my playlist to maybe just 1-3 songs.
** I'm seriously considering creating separate "working out" playlists because many of DC's songs tend to be midtempo or ballady -- which doesn't work when I'm trying to power through that last mile. Wish he'd do more uptempo; the ones he's done are quite good.
Thanks, jayelgee, you gave some info in your post I didn't know about. I followed your links, and on the one for NOH, I clicked on "I went" and put my shout-out about it. I wouldn't have known that page was there if not for your post, so thanks!
Jan82 - I have not noticed the ban button! So, I will do that, too! Thanks!
Tonight I discovered a couple of more things on lastfm that we can do. First, though, David is listed on page 30 of Popular artists/ Rock http://www.last.fm/music/+tag/rock?page=30
This tells me that we are beginning to have some impact by consistently tagging him rock, alt rock and alternative rock.
I then discovered that if you go to his artist page and click on the Events tab, you will find a listing of concerts that he has done.
The Night of Hope and Tiger Jam are listed. You can click the tab that you went if you did, and then you can leave a shout. These shouts are important and get counted.
http://www.last.fm/event/3236245+Night+of+Hope+featuring+David+Cook
Also, every time one of his songs plays on whatever lastfm radio you are playing, or when you play your scrobbled device (ipod, spotify, mog, rdio, amazon cloud etc) leave a shout about each song.
I have been making that mix radio with David and 2 other artists to see what music comes up that I can get associated with him. For example, today I made a mix radio of David, GRO and Graham Colton and got quite an interesting mix.
If you want to see what I have been up to on lastfm, just find me under the same screen name as always.
Friday, June 1, 2012 - 14:05
PeachMango:
@jan82:
I've been doing the same (banning AI peeps) because it does drive me crazy how I have to skip about 10 AI alums before I get to a non-AI act. It does take some time though because sometimes when I'm working, I forget and I have to go back and remove the scrobble and the track from the library. I usually do it for about 1/2-1 hour at a time because that's all the time I can spare to actively banning.
One thing that kinda sucks about doing that though, is that there seems to be a very limited universe of other acts that get played -- such as SafetySuit, THH, Ryan Star, Matt Nathanson, Script, and GRO. I'm okay with most of them -- but it seems most of them are still associated with him in some way (openers, friends, etc..
I wish it was a larger universe of acts like my Pandora DC station which plays Switchfoot, Anberlin, Lifehouse, Coldplay, Weezer, Green Day, etc. and other music that I actually listen to/own. Another plus is that those bands have a huge fanbase and I *hope* that some David Cook songs also get played on THEIR Pandora stations.
Last fm determines "similar artists" based on artists that are played by the same listeners. They say this somewhere in their FAQs. On David's page it links to his "similar" artists. Those are the artists that are played on his radio. Artists like Ryan Star, GRO, Safety Suit, Lifehouse, Rob Thomas, The Script, Carolina Liar, Thriving Ivory, are already identified as "similar" artists. But the other reality TV artists are among the most "similar" so they get played the most.
The best way for us to diversify his similar artists is to diversify the other artists we scrobble. Then we all win
@jan82:
I've been doing the same (banning AI peeps) because it does drive me crazy how I have to skip about 10 AI alums before I get to a non-AI act. It does take some time though because sometimes when I'm working, I forget and I have to go back and remove the scrobble and the track from the library. I usually do it for about 1/2-1 hour at a time because that's all the time I can spare to actively banning.
One thing that kinda sucks about doing that though, is that there seems to be a very limited universe of other acts that get played -- such as SafetySuit, THH, Ryan Star, Matt Nathanson, Script, and GRO. I'm okay with most of them -- but it seems most of them are still associated with him in some way (openers, friends, etc..
I wish it was a larger universe of acts like my Pandora DC station which plays Switchfoot, Anberlin, Lifehouse, Coldplay, Weezer, Green Day, etc. and other music that I actually listen to/own. Another plus is that those bands have a huge fanbase and I *hope* that some David Cook songs also get played on THEIR Pandora stations.
JAYELGEE - I had been trying to do this when I first started with Lasfm, but hadn't played with it much lately. I added alt rock tags to a bunch of Dave's music earlier in the week. I hadn't played David Cook radio in awhile, so tried again today.I still got a bunch of AI artists coming up. I have always just hit the ban button when they come up rather than removing them the way you mentioned. I wonder if that would make a difference. Any thoughts?
I am experimenting with how to "teach" the lastfm computers to connect David with artists outside the AI stable and to eventually disassociate "David Cook Radio" from most of the Idols.
We have been able to get this jump started for the week ending 5/20/12 by playing and tagging him enough as Alternative Rock music to land him as #122/150 Top Alternative Rock artists in the US with 534 listeners.
http://www.last.fm/charts/artists/top/place/United+States/tag/alternativ...
What I am experimenting with is to listen to "David Cook Radio" on lastfm, but every time another Idol is played, I "remove" them from my lastfm library by clicking on the little drop down menu next to their song and clicking "remove."
It seems to be working - right now, lastfm is playing a group called Cavo whose tags are alternative rock, experimental and some others. Their style sounds so much like David's genre. BTW, I keep MWK and GRO and Ryan Star come up. But I remove any other Idol - except I kept James Durbin whose hard rock is something I want to get associated with David.
As I get to know some of these alt artists, I will also "love" their songs to teach the computer to associate those with David's songs that I have "loved."
I will keep an eye on how all this is working. But everyone should try it - there is big power in the numbers of fans who do these things with artists they want to support.
And remember to "love" David's tracks so that we can break him into "most loved tracks" on the alternative rock, singer-songwriter (yet to break in there. Need more tags) and rock charts.
TLS needs more promo before it can break into "fastest rising" or "hyped" charts and that may not happen.
Make sure to mix his music with artists from the genres he wants to promote - rock and alternative rock. Not sure yet about the indie tag.
Another interesting thing to do on lastfm is to make your own custom radio station. Last gives you the opportunity to create your own mix with any 3 artists or genres. I did one - with Counting Crows, Jack's Mannequin and David Cook. This then put him in a genre-spanning and demographic spanning mix. I am going to come up with other interesting artists to mix him with that will direct the computer away from Idol and toward including him with edgier artists.
That's it for now!
Monday, May 14, 2012 - 10:01
Leonuru:
Hi. I just created a profile and I'm already streaming for whatever's worth. Smiling
Leonuru glad you are on board! Believe that what it is worth is a lot! At the low point several weeks ago he was getting about 20k counted spins a week. That is good. But if you do some calculations it is easy to see his numbers could be much higher if we could get more individuals to set up accounts on these sites. 20k would be the equivalent of just 1000 fans listening to just 20 tracks a week. Or just 500 fans listening to 40 tracks a week. Yet a lot of those total spins will have come from the multitude of casual fans who give him just a few spins a week. It makes me think there is a huge untapped resource out there of dedicated fans who are just not yet set up with streaming and scrobbling accounts.
minstrel...thanks....Just want to make sure when I scrobble...the play counts
it's not in the last.fm catalog to stream, or on spotify yet either. which makes sense if D wants to maximize buys vs free plays, right now.
Just play it in your itunes or from your ipod/droid device and make sure you have that set up to scrobble to last.fm.
Bump
Stream. Like. Leave feedback. Shout out. Stream variety of like artists as well as Dave's music.
I can't get TLSIWFY to stream from my last fm acct. I tried having both lastfm & itunes open & scrobble on.... Song plays...but when I go back to check under "Recently Played" it says song is not available in last fm catalog and can't be streamed. If I go on last fm website...after I tried streaming it...it only shows 30 sec snippet version.
Any ideas?
Hi. I just created a profile and I'm already streaming for whatever's worth.
I am bumping this thread!
This is a very important time for us to make sure we use these services.
If anyone has been putting off getting signed up, this is a great time to do so! The statistics on how many listeners he has and how many spins is readily available to people in this industry. We listen to his music all the time. Lets make sure those spins get counted. Plus it is a GREAT way to find other music we like and to help promote him to other listeners on these services.
I was on David's home page the other day and I noticed one of the current listeners was playing Declaration from "The Script Radio." This is an example of one of the benefits of Last.fm. As he becomes associated with other artists he will be played on their 'radio' stations and can get to new ears that way.
Thanks maybeplum. I'll check pms but it might be tomorrow night before I can get back with you. I really want to get this scrobble thing going and get my plays to count on Last.fm. I listen to TLM and DCTR every day, or night and I cringe when I think of how many plays have been lost because I can't figure this out.
I already do a lot by streaming on VH1, Vevo, YouTube, AOL, and commenting on the videos or music and searching Bing, Yahoo, and Google 2 or 3 times a day, going to Dave's wikipedia page daily and commenting there occasionally, and requesting at my local radio station. I have started streaming David's videos from there even though they aren't the official FIM video. I've never gotten in to Yes.com, but Last.fm and scrobble seemlike such an easy thing to do considering I am already playing the music.
Hummingbird I sent you a PM with some suggestions. If we figure this out and get this to work then we can post the solution here.
I know I recently had my scrobbling accidentally shut off for a while, I believe as a result of some anti-virus software I installed. So it is not a bad idea to periodically check your profile and see that new spins are counted!
Thanks for answering mainedcfan. I listen to all of my music from Windows Media player because for some reason everything on my i-tunes skips. It should work the same way though with that as i-tunes if I can ever get scrobble to load. So far no luck.
Hummingbird, I'm far from an expert at LastFM so I don't know how you can correct the problem. But I have a suggestion if you haven't tried this. What I do is I open my LastFM icon which is on my desktop. Then I open my Itunes (rather than opening my library in my LastFM account). I have TLM in a playlist and DCTR in a separate playlist. I go into the playlist, click on Circadian and it just plays every song, then I do that with my DCTR playlist too. When I look at my LastFM (which is minimized - I just hover over it or click on it to bring it up), it shows what's playing & in the lower right corner it says "scrobbling on"). That way it doesn't matter if your I-Tunes songs are in your LastFM library or not. It does need to say "scrobbling on" though. Hope that helps!
I'm glad to see this thread up again. I signed up for Last.FM October. It never did sync my I-Tunes to my library. I can't even begin to count the times I have gone to community to install scrobbler but every time I do I get a message that last.fm and numbers are already installed so I try to over write it because I have never installed scrobbler. Within a minute or two I get a message that the save process has timed out.
I listen to all David Cook every night going to sleep. It is getting very frustrating that I can't figure out how to make my plays count. Anybody with any suggestions feel free to jump in here or PM me here if you don't want to clog up the thread with my ignorance. In other words HEEELLLPPPP!!!! Or if you prefer - "MAYDAY, SOMEBODY SAVE ME NOW"!!! Please???
I am bumping this thread
Hi, everyone! What's the deal with LastFM and the artists they say are "similar" to David? I'm listening at work now and the artists listed as being similar are a bunch I've never heard of, with the exception of Jeff Buckley and The Beach Boys. WTH!!!!! In no way would I say they are anything like David. Has something gone haywire at LastFM or is this some kind of joke? Anything we can do to fix it? Am I all worked up about nothing?
Thanks, min