Comments on: What Artists Should Know About Last.fm

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:25:22 +0000

It’s been so long since I set that stuff up, and it might have changed in the meantime, but as I recall they aren’t three separate logins. One login serves all three purposes. Your user account has a “Music Manager” option which handles your artist and label details.

By: Chad

Chad — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:57:20 +0000

Nice writeup! However, I read the help file at Last.fm’s website, yet I still don’t understand why I would need to create 3 accounts (artist, label, user). Could you please explain? I’d be grateful to know.

Thank you

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 02:03:30 +0000

Ed, you’ve obviously had a different experience, but I feel that I have complete control over my property at Last.fm. Nobody can upload Color Theory songs but me, and if someone uploads a photo I don’t like, I can delete it. If a song is misnamed, I can suggest a correction and eventually it’ll take. More than anything, Last.fm monitors what people are listening to, regardless of whether they host any content.

I agree with you on Bandcamp. It’s a breath of fresh air. Assuming they stay in business, they’ll eventually need to monetize. SoundCloud is another option for streaming your whole album. They even give you code so anyone can post it. For example, I’ve posted the new Imogen Heap album on colortheory.com: http://colortheory.com/imogenheap

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:34:43 +0000

I deleted all my albums from Last.fm because anarchy is incompatible with property rights. I’ve kept my account active, however, so I may monitor any unauthorized uploads/activity and deal with it. In my view, an artist should never put himself in a position of losing control of his own property. It’s antithetical to everything “indie” means.

I have, however, uploaded my music to a great place called bandcamp. I highly recommend that you check it out. After years of dealing with garbage sites like MySpace and all the other clones, it’s a breath of fresh air, because there is nothing competing with your music: no silly commenting, voting, spamming…no creepy Match.com webcam-porn ads (no ads, period!) The only thing on your page is your music, the album/track art, a very good playback protocol that allows listeners to stream a whole album from beginning to end without interruption. Plus easy purchase links via PayPal. The site doesn’t take a cut of your sales profit either. And it has a very good stats section. Check it out!

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 03:12:44 +0000

That’s a great idea EM! It seems like sites are struggling to develop new features to let us post once, publish anywhere (iLike, ArtistData, ReverbNation, Ping.fm). What we really need is a site that does the same thing with profiles! Maybe BandID.com or something…

By: E M

E M — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:07:34 +0000

I find lastfm amusing. I had to claim both my current artist, as well as the band I was in years ago. The process was silly and time consuming. I’ve spent countless hours trying to make the pages look better and be informative- but like all these sites they are duplicates of each other in many senses. They should just have an rss feed that connects them all so the label or artist doesn’t have to quality-control sites like this. Lastfm was the first site I ever saw that could index an artist’s music without the label or artist being involved on any level. In my view it’s just shady…I am not sure if it’s a copyrigjt violation per say- but it is shady.

I agree most fans police themselves fine- it’s the site itself (the dual profiles, incorrect video posts) and possibly some bands acting as users that mess it up.

What I do like it is gives a fairly accurate picture of how many fans are listening comparitively at least to other labels and artists, with less influence from the label or artist. It’s not like myspace in that sense where you might get many friend requests from bands per day, and totally artificial statistics compared to how known a band is outside that platform (ie: myspace).

Like myspace, I don’t like these sorts of platforms because they don’t pay fairly for streaming imo, if they pay at all as I can see from this thread.

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 03:16:23 +0000

CD Baby is finally showing my Last.fm royalties… (drum roll, please)

$0.74

It appears to be calculated over many years, since my 1999 album took in the most, and my new album isn’t even listed. For comparison’s sake, I’ve earned $1.18 from Lala. Bottom line, royalties are negligible.

By: Brian Hazard

Brian Hazard — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 17:30:09 +0000

I know what you’re talking about Sean. It gets confusing fast when a bio says, “this name refers to one of three bands.” You might check out the discussions on the Last.fm forums, because I know it’s a heated topic with no easy solution.

As for tags, I suppose it’s the same way on Amazon. Someone can tag your music “pirate rape songs” and there’s nothing you can do about it, except to stop writing about pirate rape so much.

By: SeanG

SeanG — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 03:52:40 +0000

The trouble I have with lastfm is the total inability to control tags. Lastfm is awful about lumping bands with similar or same names on the same page. The most popular tags greatly influence search results and “similar artist” suggestions. There is a band using a name very similar to my own band and their tags have overrun my band’s page to the point where I have to put a big disclaimer at the top of our page.

Lastfm staff has basically said I’m SOL. I don’t quite thing misleading tags are libel, but it sure feels like it.

By: fuck lastfm

fuck lastfm — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:05:38 +0000

lastfm is such a useless piece of shit fraud. overrun by trolls. i cannot wait to receive our settlement for use of media without permission and defamation