Sean Brennan wrote:
VittraEternity wrote:
I just thought last.fm was just a site that keeps track of everyone's listening habits, via "scrobbling", and then makes recommendations based on what you're listening to. I didn't realize bands would get money for having their music scrobbled.

And Sean, I understand your point with band pages on the web, where content is supplied by fans but it is usually meant with good intention and the information put out there becomes more and more reliable over time. Take for instance, the metal-archives website, a site that serves as an online encyclopedia for metal music -I can consider this to be an excellent source for information. The vast majority of bands I listen to aren't that involved in online matters so if it wasn't for the fans, a lot of these bands would go unnoticed. 

But regarding last.fm, in the past I have tried to clean up some artist pages and fix album information for various bands but it's incredibly difficult on last.fm. Band profiles can be written up easily enough, but they have a very bizarre means of getting album information. I seem to recall that they get it from a particular website that for whatever reason, they view as a valid source, but is full is full or errors and difficult for people to edit - I gave up on trying a long time ago. Many of the bands I listen to have no albums listed on last.fm as a result, and last.fm is unable to differentiate between artists with the same name, so things aren't being properly scrobbled and I assume most bands aren't being compensated at all.  

I don't agree that the info becomes more reliable over time on these sites that allow user input. I've been keeping an eye on just this for years. This takes people actually knowing what's accurate in the first place, and then being vigilant about maintaining that info. On last FM you have no control of many aspects, as you found out, and often when you do (like on Wikipedia) you're met with psychos who insist their version of reality is correct or relevant, even if it isn't.

Like Music Brainz or whatever it's called is a horrible site and terribly inaccurate, as are many lyric sites, WIkipedia, and others that you cannot really control, or the process to input info is so complex or convoluted that it's impossible to overcome the inaccurate info without an army of people submitting corrected info regularly.

The scrobbling thing on LastFM hurts artists because it limits and cubby-holes listeners. Like, on the LAM page FearCult is listed as similar artist. We are NOTHING alike and it's truly embarrassing that these horrible artists like FearCult or Emilie Autumn are associated with LAM.

Sean


I think it depends on how the site is run. There's some sites where people have to supply actual sources to be able back up the information that they are giving, and there's some that allow people to freely edit without any sources. I remember years ago, it was incredibly difficult to find out any information about a band aside from very general information provided by their official website, and a lot of details you would find elsewhere were poorly sourced or based on speculation. A major problem I still see is that various sites just simply copy information provided by other sites regardless of whether or not it's true or false for the sake of having something on their site. But sites like metal-archives, although not perfect, are striving for something great and doing a pretty good job I think. It would be nice to see similar sites for other types of music. And yes, I believe Music Brainz is the site I was referring to.

With the similar artists function on last.fm, I think that is primarily based on the user's listening habits. So I would agree that Fear Cult and LAM don't sound anything alike, but often there are people who enjoy both bands. I think there's some reasoning in that, that if you like a particular band like LAM, you may also enjoy other bands that other LAM fans commonly listen to. Honestly, I can't think of a single band that really sounds like LAM. I've heard people say you sound like all sorts of bands but I have yet to actually agree with one.