Some of you might know I've been a long-time supporter of Last.fm. You can see on my profile (that I just linked) that I've been a member since November 2006 and I've scrobbled some 26k songs. Looking at the current state of this site, you'll see I even have some blocks dedicated to various feeds from my Last.fm profile including the top artists I've listened to and the most recent music I've played.

What I've always liked about Last.fm was their data collection and statistical analysis tools. As a massive nerd, I find data mining fascinating and enjoy collecting mountains of data on my listening habits (26k+ songs over almost five years). It's been fun to find out things about myself I never would have predicted. For example, I never would have expected that my top most listened to artist was Akira Yamaoka, especially considering I only have two CDs of his music. Nor would I have expected that Goldfrapp, a group I only discovered last summer, would over the course of six months rise to number 10 in my most played artists. Additionally, Tiny Tim's "Livin' in the Sunlight, Lovin' in the Moonlight" was my number 1 most listened to song for years until it was usurped by Gnarls Barkley's "Run (I'm a Natural Disaster)" and Manish's "Series of Tubes". The data-mining of my tastes has been most fascinating as I've discovered a) my musical tastes are actually pretty crazy diverse and b) I tend to get stuck in musical ruts for long periods of time (likely an Asperger's thing).