I’ve never really been interested in the whole social networking scene, especially not for anything other than communication.  But due to recent boredom with my music collection (mostly after running out of songs on my iPod on a daily basis), I’ve taken to listening to Last.fm recently.

It’s great so far, and is turning out to be a welcome change to being mid way through a 2 hour mix as I’m currently used to, and I can listen to a whole range of music I wouldn’t usually get to.

I’m still wondering what the point of the social networking side to this is though, so I can compare my music taste with someone named jeebee34 halfway accross the world and realise my music compatitibility with him/her is only 12%?  What does this prove, that I should start listening to Madonna or Justin Timberlake to boost this rating with my new found online friend?

Last.fm makes use of the concept of scrobbling, which is where whatever you’re currently listening to is submitted up to the last.fm server for everyone to see, and scrutinise.  This doesn’t just work for when you’re listening to last.fm radio itself but through any popular media player (such as iTunes, Windows Media Player, amarok, Exaile, etc), or through any number of music devices, such as an iPod or my Nokia N95.  You’ve go to wonder though, what do they do with all those stored music preferences?  Could it be used to tailor a bunch of music adverts to our inboxes around Christmas time, or perhaps used in court to prove that we’d listened to a bunch of Metallica music, far more than one person could possibly own?

All that aside though, I’ve been quite impressed at how well it can map music choices to a chosen genre or tag, and searching by tags or artists return results you’d expect (mostly, anyway).  A friend searched for music like Daft Punk the other day and was blessed with the sweet soothing sounds of koRn, so I’m not sure what went wrong there.

Favourite Tags so far:

• dnb
• progressive trance
• psytrance (see a trend happening here?)

So if you’re a last.fm’er, jump on, look at my profile and add me

Through much thought and deliberation, I’ve finally decided on the best song ever created. It’s a big call, and no one man should be allowed to make it, or mutter the words for that matter, but I’ll do it anyway. The fact of the matter is, its impossible to make such a call, as noone has exactly the same tastes, and those who do will most probably not like exactly the same thing anyway. But this is a blog, my blog, works streamed from my head, so I call the shots.

Disclaimer: I must say, if you don’t agree with me, and have another suggestion then I’m all ears so please comment.

I’m not an ageist, my criteria for the choice of song means it didn’t have to be brand new. This one has been floating around for a while, and it really gets my Juices flowing.

Scan to 2:11 for the best bit

It’s Dash Berlin - Til the Sky Falls Down. I most recently heard this in Leon Boiler - Intuition Recordings @ Amsterdam Dance Event 18/10/2007.

It forms an elite group (of what must be about a thousand songs) which all rate in my BTMOAT listings, featuring such classics as:

• Bedrock - Heaven Scent
• Sarah McLachlan - Fear
• Sarah McLachlan - Fallen
• Karen Overton - Your Loving Arms
• Gustavo Santaolalla - The Wings
• Holden & Thompson - Come to Me
• 4 Strings - Sunrise
• John O’Callaghan - Big Sky

What’s your favourite song ever? Cut me down..