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November 30, 2005

Calling All Hiphop Scrobblers

So I'm going to have to call you by name. I just got dropped a line that the fine folks that put together AudioScrobbler, being as they might be a bit challenged vis a vis American hiphop musical critical tastes, are looking for some of us in the know, to show up and help them along with their catalog.

In case you haven't heard Last.fm aka AudioScrobbler is the best thing to come along in online music since the CDDB. They basically wrote a plugin for iTunes (and some other players) that tracks your listening habits in realtime and puts them on a profile page at last.fm. Note that .fm is a high level domain so there's no dot com at the end of it. So what a lot of us have been doing is manually writing out what we've been listening to, Last.fm allows you to share playlists. But that's just the half.

Along with cool things you'd expect like affinity profiling and the addition of friends and groups, Last.fm gets licenses of all the music its people listen to and generates realtime streaming webcasts. So you can literally listen to the music I listen to as if you were plugged into my iTunes and listened on scramble. Is that cool or what?

The problem is that apparently they don't have a sufficiently critical mass of discerning hiphop listeners. They're scratching their heads on this. My guess is that they just haven't stepped on the right viral for marketing until this very moment. So since I think Last.fm is very cool, (and they still haven't stopped putting in new features), I'm doing my share.

First of all, you need to check out my Last.fm page. As you can see, I have a rather (ahem) refined taste in music. To take a typical set of artists towards the top of my list gives you a clue (Dub Syndicate, Sade, Soul Caughing, Herbie Hancock, Public Enemy & Paul Schwartz). BTW, Sixoseven is me. I've created about four CDs worth of ambient and dance music. So you can see all the stuff I listen to on the whole as well as what I'm listening to right now. As I write, it's Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man.

Since I'm fairly self-absorbed, I don't listen to other people's music as much as I ought to. Honestly I could use some fresh ideas. Last.fm makes it easy. Anyway, enough plug. Here's the bottom line. Starting with me, let's expand the hiphop vocab of Last.fm. All you do is register (it's free) and play what you play. Make me a friend and we'll follow up.

Who am I calling out? Jimi Izrael of course, Avery Tooley, Byron Crawford, EJ Flavors, Mister JT, Lynn Johnson, Honeysoul. All Y'all. You are the blogosphere's top dogs of hiphop crit and hype. Everybody else too, naturally. One cannot have too many cyber-associates. On this one, I would even accept ex-Crips. Let's spread the meme and crank up the theme. I will be getting feedback on more specifically what kind of feedback Last wants us to feedback.

And because I'm on the subject I will subject myself to the torture of naming the best hiphop song ever. I have a 1/10 chance of hittin' it. So here's the ten.

Ladi Dadi
The Choice is Yours
The World is Yours
Scenario
CREAM
Bring the Noise
Flava in Ya Ear
Mona Lisa
Bring the Pain
Follow The Leader
The World is Yours

Posted by mbowen at November 30, 2005 10:19 PM

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Comments

I'm familiar w/ Last.fm. Seems to me their primary service offering is already available from other digital music services with superior catalogs. So I'm dubious about the value for sending them 'established' content.

If I were running their marketing department, I'd target independent musicians themselves to recruit as my viral street team. In turn, each act would bring their respective fans to the Last.fm table.

My company's completing the final details on a similar approach using emerging Neo-Soul/Jazz acts and radio stations in the Mid-Atlantic and South region. We'll see how it goes. I would like to incorporate these blogospheric top dogs, though.

Posted by: MIB at December 1, 2005 09:44 AM

I'm familiar w/ Last.fm. Seems to me their primary service offering is already available from other digital music services with superior catalogs. So I'm dubious about the value for sending them 'established' content.

If I were running their marketing department, I'd target independent musicians themselves to recruit as my viral street team. In turn, each act would bring their respective fans to the Last.fm table.

My company's completing the final details on a similar approach using emerging Neo-Soul/Jazz acts and radio stations in the Mid-Atlantic and South region. We'll see how it goes. I would like to incorporate these blogospheric top dogs, though.

Posted by: MIB at December 1, 2005 09:45 AM

I'm jumping on this as soon as I get to my home computer with access to all of my music. These days so many people have personal music devices that the only time I get a chance to hear something new and fresh is when I ride in a frend's car. I have a feeling this service will cause me to spend a bit more money at the ol' record store, but probably for the better.

It's hard to name a favorite hip hop song of all time, but for me it's probably One Time For Your Mind or The Message, both by Nasir Jones, most know him as just Nas.

Posted by: matt at December 1, 2005 12:15 PM

Hey guys put me in your friends list when you get established up at Last.fm. We definitely have to start a music club. I'll be thinking of a name...

Posted by: Cobb [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 1, 2005 01:26 PM

a li'l late comin in out the street, but i'm on it.

look for illtelligent.

Posted by: avery [TypeKey Profile Page] at December 3, 2005 03:54 PM