Watch out Pandora, Last.fm is on the rise

At this very moment, would you like to know what is Becky listening to? What about little Johnny? And good ol’ Andy? Check their Last.fm’s.

Like Pandora and Slacker, Last.fm is a website that eases the anguish of finding and listening to new music for free—especially as Pirate Bay founders are in court and Limewire halted its software use.

Even though Last.fm was released two years after Pandora in 2002, both are leading online music streaming services. Last.fm distinguishes itself not only by streaming music and making personalized stations, but also by providing a community for users to see and share what they’re listening to.

Pandora is like Marvin the depressed robot, from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”—apologizing when it plays a song you dislike and certainly depressed and limited by annoying advertisements. On the other hand, Last.fm is more human. It tells you about the concerts you shouldn’t be missing, allows you talk to other people and see the people behind the music and their listeners. Last.fm is more personal. And music is a personal affair. But, like anything human, it’s certainly not perfect.

If you open two windows of the Last.fm website, Last.fm starts skipping songs randomly. There is no pause button, but a stop button which takes you back to the “search for new music page”. And if you want to create a new station, you can no longer listen to what you are currently listening to.

Then there is the dreadful problem that comes with your music taste: the subject of speculation in public. Sorry, but your secret passion for Jusin Bieber’s music will no longer be secret.

Although Last.fm starts your “station” or playlist experience with a short ad, it provides unlimited listening from there on out. Pandora reminds you to pay for their premium ad-free Pandora One service with a limited six skips and the occasional ad between songs and station skips. Pick your poison.

Last.fm’s home portal displays upcoming concerts of bands or artists you like, friends’ songs, and suggestions of new music. With more information and interesting photos than Pandora, the user interface is more cluttered than that of Pandora’s svelte and clean UI. The photos, short biographies, and background info, however, create a more wholesome connected music experience that you simply can’t get with Pandora’s cold and minimalistic interface.

Music selections from Last.fm seem to be more daring than Pandora’s, which does have interesting finds every now and then, but, in five different stations, the same band arose in all of them, all playing the same song. Pandora lets you tailor stations more finely than Last.fm’s, but only because they need more tailoring from the start—leaving you to do the extra work.

Last.fm is understanding too. If you don’t want to stream music from its website, feel free to play music from the comfort of your own iTunes player while still letting others know what you’re listening to via Last.fm’s handy-dandy “scrobbler”—which can be downloaded and works in the background.

Though Pandora claims to “play only music you like,” it may just dehumanize it. If you’re an avid Pandora listener, take a dive into Last.fm and get to know, not only what you’re listening to, but who. Last.fm has opened Pandora’s box and revealed the secret to streaming music online: people.