Last.fm

Not that Spotify is lacking flak these days or anything but when last year's Spotify Wrapped came out, it rubbed me the wrong way: it leaned wayyyy too heavily on vibes and not enough on actual data about my listening habits. It didn't expose anything about the way that I listen to music that I wouldn't have noticed on my own: I listen to a lot of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu at the gym, I listen to some ambient music during the day at work.

Last.fm is the polar opposite. If you've never heard of Last.fm before, it's a website from the solidly Web 2.0 days where you track what music you've listened to. Back in the day there used to be an app that would scan your computer for listens, and would import all of the listens from your iPod when you next plugged it into the computer. The app's still around, but nowadays it works using the APIs that streaming services expose.

For whatever reason, I dropped off Last.fm sometime in 2013, but came back to it at the beginning of this year. It's unapologetically wholesome-feeling and full of context for the music that you're listening to. It's a great peek into the listening habits of folks who care deeply about music, as well. And it's got a nice API, which I've used here to populate that little widget you see in the footer.

Find me on Last.fm here.