Technology

Yes you can.

The ux is underwhelming lol.. First reaction: "only the last 3xxx songs??" Click over 20m later to see if still working.. "oh snap! 3xxx pages of data!!"

Where do you listen to YouTube Music? You can use PanoScrobbler on Android Or Web Scribbler extension if you listen in your browser

Oh that's pretty cool! I agree about sharing playlists being way too difficult.

I have been working on a solution for sharing playlists as part of my music sharing side-project Bongo. Right now you can technically do it but it doesn't work very well. My algorithm looks for the closest match when finding a playlist but sometimes they aren't exactly equivalent across different services.

That's probably confusing since I didn't explain what Bongo does right now. You can take a link from Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music and Bongo makes a page with links to that media on all three of the services. The idea was to make it easier to share music with friends.

You can check it out here: https://bongo.to

Here's an example of a shared song: https://bongo.to/?am=album%2Fback-on-74%2F1676151993%3Fi%3D1676152328

It allows for data analysis. This helps you to discover new music, keep track of new releases coming out. It also allows you to easily share your musical interests with others. And it doesn't have blind spots. Spotify would never recommend you something that's not on Spotify. Because people submit listens to ListenBrainz from Spotify but also from other platforms and from local files there are no inherent blind spots. My listening behavior is no secret, anyone can have a look at it, I choose for it to not be private. But I wouldn't want to just gift it to any one particular company that can use it to make money. By submitting listens to ListenBrainz you basically gift it to everyone.

Recording of listens and then sharing it publicly allows to discoverability of more music.

I'd recommend PanoScrobbler instead on your phone

I used to like last.fm. But i felt like it was only becoming worse over the years. For instance, I used to like groups and was quite active in some. Then suddenly they were removed. With ListenBrainz I feel like there is much to improve still, and perhaps it's not on the level of Last.fm on some aspects. But ListenBrainz is getting better by the year and will only improve as more people join the project.

Fair enough - I use both for different reasons, and am also thinking on getting Last.fm Pro in the future.

ListenBrainz has the ability of submitting more accurate data (i.e. specific recordings and releases, tied to MusicBrainz ofc) while last.fm has the better developer ecosystem (a lot of apps support it e.g. third party Apple Music Clients, the .fmbot Discord bot which I do pay monthly for). Not a huuuuge fan of Last.fm's way of handling artist names that have collabs or featured artists in them, but that might be the obsessive data nerd in me I guess (and I guess last.fm Pro can fix that)

if need be you can periodically import your listens from last.fm or libre.fm. I use both Last.fm and ListenBrainz since LB is better at storing accurate listen data (supported players can submit MusicBrainz IDs) but last.fm has a better developer ecosystem (apps like .fmbot have better integration with last.fm)

Are you aware of eavesdrop.fm?

I couldn't really tell you. The ListenBrainz android app was first released in February. I imagine it has improved over the year. I can't tell you because I don't use the app. I personally have my Tauon Music Box audioplayer on PC linked up with Listenbrainz, and I don't listen to music on android. But on the forums I don't hear a lot of complaints so I would assume it's reasonably good.

Essentially, both ListenBrainz and last.fm are listen trackers. Both use listen data to recommend music you might like or users who share the same tastes, but ListenBrainz is an open-source effort by the people behind MusicBrainz.

Last.fm used to have a Pandora radio aspect to it, but lost the race with YouTube music, Spotify, etc.

The thing that last.fm had that made them unique is what they call scrobbling. Basically they kept track of what users were listening to and made links between user preferences that you can use to find new music. I mean they used to, and they still do too, but with far far fewer users. Think Spotify's year in review, but running constantly.

Honestly, it's pretty great. I still hop on from time to time, because it's a great way to find less well known bands. Makes me sad for when it was better used though..

I paired my Spotify account with ListenBrainz and they also sent me a playlist last year with my most listened songs from 2022 for what it's worth.

not really seeing the benefit to me if they just record the data.

I can't speak for ListenBrainz, but Last.fm has been great for music discovery/recommendations. Also, unlike Spotify which only tracks your music till October, there's no such limitations with Last.fm. You can also get a multitude of stats, which helps review your music tastes and discover new music. I also like sharing my stats with others on social media, and making connections with people having similar music tastes as me.

In what way is this worse? This is just a service that tracks your listens