last.fm ask-a-user game

kargatron

Below's a list recent listened-to albums from active(?) last.fm users here. You're invited to browse any of them and pick out an album you're curious about that someone's listened to, at which point I'm obligating that user to respond with reviewish comments. Other time periods are available to click through if you want. If I've missed someone (active on last.fm), I apologize, just post your user id and I'll add you to the list.

bremble: 3 months, last week
cafreema: 3 months, last week
choicweb0pen0: 3 months, last week
Doofy: 3 months, last week
Dr Mutex: 3 months, last week
elwoodicious: 3 months, last week
greg: 3 months, last week
kargatron: 3 months, last week
Katrina: 3 months, last week
NankerP: 3 months, last week
Plong42: 3 months, last week
thom: 3 months, last week

Also, consider this a nudge for non-active users to see the community utility of personal scrobbling...

cafreema

Interesting idea! Got to add thom (indieb0i). He's too active to leave out. Both xtrev and brittleblood are less active, but still scrobbling.

Craig

greg

I've just signed up!

kargatron

But I'm guessing your last.fm id is not 'greg', Greg.

cafreema

Well, since it was your idea kargatron, it only makes sense that we start with you:

Antony and the Johnsons – Swanlights

Craig

greg

No its gregcra. The list of plays is amazing! Neil Diamond, Corrs, even Abba in my top 25 plays! Shows what we play when my wife is around - I can't educate her!! It is interesting though, because it shows also how my music tastes have changed, moved on, since joining emusic and then emusers. It'll now start buiding up on a weekly basis, which might be a bit more representative of what I listen to, except when we are on holiday or away for the weekend! Then the Abba will get played.... I'll check out tomorrow if what I play on Spotify can be added into the mix

choiceweb0pen0

cool idea.

bremble

Mine is bremblini - problem is that I still listen to most of my music on CD or vinyl (and streaming is coming up fast). I've been on a big Richard Thompson kick lately - mostly CD and LP (older things like Henry the Human Fly and newish like Old Kit bag. Still...

greg

That's an interesting point bremble. If I'm going on a short journey I'll just play from a CD in my car. I also tend to play some music on CD simply because when I work on my computer the sound is better from CDs in a separate player - that's how I usually play Kind of Blue for example. But having said that, the last.fm list should be reasonably accurate most of the time

cafreema

greg - You can delete plays you don't want. This doesn't help much initially because you can only delete all or nothing by an artist (although I did delete a couple artists when I started that were my wife for every single play), but going forward you'll be able to delete individual plays. Oh, and friendship requested. I'm very lonely.

bremble - Some streaming scrobbles. I'm not sure on most specifics except that Mog was advertising that it scrobbles.

Craig

thomnottom

Yes, Mog definitely scrobbles - although I had a problem with it at one point. If only my car stereo would scrobble...

Friends requests have been sent!

kargatron

Antony and the Johnsons – Swanlights

Ah, another wonderful album from Antony. I don't have his debut yet, but have the following three, all of which I like a lot. His music is a pretty distinct kind of soaring, textural, fervent art pop. Lyrically the songs are usually simple but starkly emotional and intense. I looked at your library, and you only have one track, "Thank You For Your Love", which represents that description well. What do you think of that track? It's on the more upbeat side of the spectrum, much of the other songs have a more orchestral and ethereal feel. Try "Salt Silver Oxygen" as an example.

This album features another gorgeous duet with Björk (the first was on her Volta, which you don't have in your last.fm library either, oh well). I got Swanlights in January around the time of all the year-end lists, and remember thinking this album, though mentioned often enough, got short shrift in profile.

choiceweb0pen0

Okay, I've added friend requests too.

cafreema

kargatron - I enjoy "Thank You For Your Love" but have always been on the fence about what I've heard from Antony. I usually like his kind of falsetto pop, but his particular voice has given me pause from much exploration. I'll check out "Salt Silver Oxygen" and let you know my thoughts.

I really need more Bjork.

Craig

kargatron

When browsing last.fm to see what you had in your lib, Craig, I found there was no easy way to get the info I wanted. I had to go into my lib, click on a top artist's plays, switch the artist name in the url, then switch the username, to see what matched in your lib. There's no search function to give that stuff directly! Really kind of a pain. If any last.fm users know of a more direct way to search someone's library, lemme know.

Due to taste overlaps, I'd love to particularly see brighternow, amclark2, and Bad Thoughts actively scrobble. As I said, its utility extends past the purely personal, assuming one grants the possibility of utility to snooping and voyeurism. Which of course I do.

kargatron

Some comment requests:

thom: Jason Ajemian & the HighLife – "Let Me Get that Digital" I know Ajemian from the free jazz trio Triage, but this sounds like a different bag.

Doofy: Rudresh Mahanthappa – Kinsmen

thomnottom

I came across "Let me get that Digital." courtesy of its 4 star review on TMT. If you know TMT, 4 stars for a jazz record means its going to have noisy and dissonant sounds all over the place. The driving force on this album is Ajemian's poetry, which he uses to guide the musicians. He's not simply reading lines over the screeches and skronks, rather he uses a sing-song type of delivery to drive the music up and down and back and forth. Or maybe it's to match it. Hard to tell when it almost seems like some of these musicians stumbled into this album without knowing where they were.

And that's not a knock. This album is like a meeting of free jazz and punk filtered by post-rock. The musicians are aware of the music around them, but are each working their own path along the way. The playing here has a tendency to keep you on edge - never quite sure if it's going to explode or morph into something more quiet. Definitely an album that requires attention. The most amazing part is that after several listens it begins to sound damn near melodic.

I don't know enough about jazz to be able to say if they are really pushing boundaries or not, but to me it sounds as though they have no idea what boundaries actually are. And that resulted in an occasionally twisted mixture of cacophonous songs that was easily one of my top 25 or 30 albums last year (if not top 20).