My Window To The World…

If you have been using it, you will understand. If you are into music but haven’t been using it, then you should join in on the Last.FM fun asap.

The good old record shops - where you know the salesman and know that you can trust his taste - are unfortunately almost extinct. In the country where I grew up, a once great shop had to eventually start selling crap just to survive - now 95 % of its inventory belongs to said category. In the place where I now live, your CD needs will only be satisfied if you are into the worst of the worst Top 40 and “Hip Hop” stuff. To not even mention the mighty vinyl…

Vinyl… good ol’ vinyl… I do miss the days of making proper compilation tapes (cassette tapes, that is) for mates and for girlfriends. There was something magic to it. You had to actually sit down and fully concentrate on the task at hand - or start all over if you made a mistake. Well, you had to start all over if you are a perfectionist like yours truly… I remember impressing girls with many a compilation I had put together for them. Cassette tape players are out of fashion, and it has become more and more difficult to impress them. Ha ha…

Nowadays, you put together a playlist in your iTunes. Since you’re already at it and it will most likely be listened to on a computer anyways, you might as well make use of the 700 MB on the CD-R, so you put eight, nine, or even ten hours (depending on your encoding rate) of music onto the CD. While arranging the playlist, you keep checking your MySpace, reply to some emails, accept an invitation for a chat with a friend - to finally rip the CD in the background while indulging in more online madness.

What does that have to do with Last.FM? I will go into that in my next post. I will outline for you how Last.FM works and how you can use it to your advantage.

Stay tuned. Subscribe to the RSS Feed to not miss the follow-up(s).

© Patrice Schneider. No reproduction without prior written consent.

Technorati Tags: Last.FM, Record Shops, Vinyl, Compilation Tapes, Online Radio, Personal Radio, Personalized Radio, Personalized Radio Station, Online Music, MySpace