I made a thing I want to show you. It will provide neither of us with any particular value, but it was a fun little labor of love and I’d hate for you to never see it.
Furthermore there is a Last.fm for Spotify app which can give you album recommendations besides other features like embedding the Last.fm artist wiki infos in the Spotify desktop software while listening. See the support group for a complete list. Both Last.fm and Spotify are available in free and premium versions. The free version of Last.fm will give you the ability to play songs and see basic stats. Of course, it has some ads.
Under my “other stuff” heading, there used to be a “Last.fm Experiments” page. It had broken over the years, and a few weeks back I thought I’d go see if I could fix it up, which — over the course of the following weeks — resulted in a new Soundtrack page with a fair amount of fancy.
As an aside, music has always been important to me. The thing is, I used to have my identity overly wrapped up in the music I listened to. Going through my records was supposed to tell you a lot about me; what I cared about, the depth of my emotions, how goddamn cool I was. That’s faded away with age, thankfully, and now I can just enjoy music and not really worry about how a particular track “reflects” on me. Anyway, I mention this because this is not a situation where there’s any expectation on you to have any interest in or particular reaction to my musical tastes. I’m also not going to curate the output of these scripts. I listen to some potentially embarrassing stuff. I’m cool with it. Ultimately, I just had some data and some tools and I wanted to make something fun.
Side note: That said, as I mention in the descriptions further in, Apple Music occasionally returns results for Nickelback during completely unrelated searches. Jam cd burning software mac. I haven’t filed a radar on this yet, but I would like to state definitively that under no circumstances are any appearances of Nickelback based on correct listening data.
It turned out that most of the problems with the previous “experiments” were on Last.fm’s side. Their API is showing its age. Since I see no indication that Last.fm is going to continue work on their API, I decided to explore other options.
After looking around a bit, I feel confident saying that, of the various streaming services, Spotify offers the best tools for developers. The Spotify API is robust, and there are tools and libraries available for most major programming languages. For the purposes of putting together a page to showcase my favorite music, it was overall the easiest to work with.
That’s great for me as a happy Spotify user. But I also subscribe to Apple Music. Why I still do that and which I would choose if I had to cut one is another post (but Spotify would win). So I spent time looking into Apple’s offerings as well.
For Apple Music, there’s both the iTunes Search API, and an official Apple Music (MusicKit) API. If you just want to find track IDs and embed codes, the search API is fine, but if you want to build your own player or dig into a logged-in user’s data, you’ll need the MusicKit API. It’s a bit of a pain to work with, and as far as I can tell not as robust as Spotify’s, but it has all basic pieces. I took the path of least resistance on this little side project; a little further digging may have yielded a different take, but I got what I needed and pulled out of the rabbit hole. Good for me.
A lot of useful info is available via these APIs even without a subscription, so if you’re ever in a position where you need a good song search API and lots of relevant data for tracks, artists, albums, etc., it’s worth keeping all of these options in mind. For Spotify, anyone can set up a developer account and get app credentials. For MusicKit (Apple Music) you do need an Apple Developer account, but the iTunes search API is open.
In this field of new data sources, Last.fm still provides some value. On the content side it provides a bucketload of extra info for every artist, album, and track. Biographies, discographies, tags, genres, related artists and the like are easy to pull down, and the search is solid. As a sneaky side benefit, and owing mostly to its age, it doesn’t use oAuth for authentication, so local scripting experiments that don’t need authentication anyway take a lot less work. I’ve been using Last.fm for years and have a solid listening history recorded there, so it’s still a good place to start with any listening showcase for me.
All that said, this round of experiments ended up taking a Frankensteinian route, with each of the four sections using a different combination of Last.fm, Spotify, and Apple Music to work its respective magic. For example, the Top Artists page pictured above uses all three to some extent:
- The list of my top artists and play counts for a 6-month period comes from Last.fm
- Artist genres, top tracks, previews, and artist image from Spotify
- Artist bios and related artists come from Last.fm
- Listen on Apple Music button from iTunes Search API
- Listen on Spotify button from… Spotify
All four sections in brief:
- Top Tracks
- My most-played tracks for the last 12 months displayed as a grid of album artwork. There’s a meter on the left of each square showing Spotify’s “energy” level for each song. This can be modified using the menu at the top to show “danceability” or “valence” (cheerfulness). Hovering over (or tapping) a square shows the title, artist, and album. If a preview is available from Spotify or Apple Music (fallback), a small play icon appears in the popup and its source is shown on hover.
- Recent Plays
- Fresh off the press, the last 30 tracks I’ve listened to. A horizontal listing of tracks in chronological order with most recent on the right. Clicking an album cover plays a track preview with some nifty animations.
- This pulls its list from Last.fm and uses the Apple Music API to get the album artwork and audio previews. For some reason it occasionally returns results as Nickelback. There should be a query parameter that allows me to specify that “Nickelback is never the correct response.”
- Like the top tracks display, each item in this display uses Spotify’s attribute data to show a meter of energy, danceability, or valence, based on the menu selection at the top.
- If I were to evolve this piece, it would collate track plays from the same album, showing a total amount of an album played as a progress indicator. On a display like this, listening to a whole album kind of ruins the aesthetic because every item now has the same artwork. It would be neat if listening to an entire album actually produced cooler output than random shuffle… sort of gamifying focus.
- Top Artists
- As mentioned above, this one is an artist showcase that offers large artwork, a bio, genre details, related artists, and a list of that artist’s most popular tracks (according to Spotify data). Tracks with previews (Spotify with Apple Music fallback) show up as links, and clicking one will play a preview. (Hovering over a linked track will show which source the preview is coming from.) This page looks very different between a mobile (narrow) view and a desktop (1024px or wider), but it works well on both.
- Top artists are determined by Last.fm, as well as associated metadata. Genres, artwork, and top tracks are courtesy of the Spotify API. Previews via Spotify with Apple Music fallback.
- Faved Tracks
- This one takes the most recent tracks I’ve “Loved” on Last.fm and finds their Apple Music links via the iTunes Search API, displaying them as a grid of embedded players. If you click in the upper right of any of the players, you can log into Apple Music and be able to add tracks directly to your library from this page (should that be a thing you wanted to do). I have no expectations that anyone else will find my musical tastes that interesting.
I put a fair amount of time into making this look good (to me, at least). It’s a fully responsive design all the way through. I’m not getting paid enough (or at all) for extensive browser testing, but it passed the basics (with the exception of Recent Tracks on iPhone, that one got weird). To see it in action, load any of the experiments on a desktop computer and resize the browser window. It scales all the way down to the smallest mobile screens but makes great use of space on a retina desktop. And if I did my job right, most of the touch/hover interactions should make sense on both mobile and desktop platforms.
If you’re curious, I have all of this data pulled together via a single server side script that just runs a couple of times a day to update a JSON file with the various combinations of API data for these pages. The front end pages are generated by reading that data from my own server and applying Handlebars templates. https://powerfuldiscover303.weebly.com/free-download-dramafever-for-android.html. If you’re interested in any part of this process, I’m happy to share scripts and tips.
Anyway, that’s it for show and tell. The Soundtrack will update over time as I listen to new music (and as I have time and interest in tinkering), but you get the idea…
If you listen to a lot of music, you should be using Last.FM. It can help you discover new music and build your collection, as well as offer fascinating insights on your musical tastes.
Luckily, Spotify and Last.FM are compatible, which means you can scrobble Spotify directly to your Last.FM profile. In this article we’ll explain how to scrobble your Spotify music using Last.FM.
What Is Scrobbling?
Scrobbling is the process of tracking the music that you listen via a third-party app. The term is most commonly associated with sending your listening history to Last.FM, though there are a couple of alternative apps that perform the same function.
https://t.co/lvmHxNqp2O still exists. They still call it scrobbling. Wild.
— Ed Macovaz (@edmacovaz) March 15, 2019
Last.FM works across your entire music collection. You can scrobble from your desktop music app, Spotify, YouTube, Google Play Music, Deezer, SoundCloud, Sonos, Tidal, and more. There’s also an Android app and an iOS app that can scrobble local music on your mobile devices.
The most significant missing app in the Last.FM line-up is Apple Music. If you dig around on the web, you can find some Apple Music scrobbling workarounds, but that’s beyond the scope of this article.
In order to scrobble, you need to give Last.FM access to your listening history. Sometimes that entails installing an app; alternatively, you may need to provide access from within a third-party app or from the Last.FM website.
How to Scrobble Spotify
There used to be different ways to scrobble Spotify to Last.FM, depending on the device you were using. In each case, you had to go into Spotify’s settings menu and enter your Last.FM credentials.
In June 2018, however, Last.FM and Spotify unveiled a new way to connect the two services. Now you need to set up Spotify scrobbling through Last.FM.
To begin the setup process, head to the Last.FM website and enter your login credentials. Once you’ve accessed your account, there are two ways to connect Last.FM to Spotify.
For the first method, click on your profile picture in the upper-right hand corner of the screen, then select Settings and open the Applications tab. To start scrobbling, simply click on the Connect button next to the Spotify logo. If it is your first time making the connection, you will need to enter your Spotify username and password.
The other way to connect the two services is to head to the Last.FM About page and click on the Track My Music tab at the top of the screen. Scroll down until you find the Spotify entry and hit Connect.
(Note: If you’re still using the old way to scrobble Spotify, make sure you fully disable the connection before setting up the new one. If you don’t, you run the risk of scrobbling the same track twice.)
The Benefits of Scrobbling Spotify to Last.FM
If you decide to scrobble Spotify using the Last.FM scrobbler, you’ll have access to a few unique benefits beyond the main features that Last.FM already provides:
- Local Spotify Files: Spotify lets you add your locally saved files into the app. The feature isn’t as reliable nor as useful as the Google Play Music offering—but it does give you a single interface for all your music tracks. As of the June 2018 update, Last.FM can also scrobble any locally saved songs that you play through the Spotify app.
- Offline Scrobbling: All the iterations of the app allow you to download Spotify music to listen to offline. Last.FM can scrobble the last 50 tracks you listened to while offline the next time you connect to the web.
- Private Sessions: If you don’t want Spotify to log your play history (and thus not use the data for recommendations), you can enter a Private Session. If you start a Private Session on Spotify, Last.FM scrobbling is also suspended. It’s a great way to prevent your Last.FM data from getting clogged up with kids’ songs and podcasts.
Are There Any Downsides to Scrobbling Spotify?
Last.FM can seriously enrich your musical experience, but it’s not without its drawbacks.
The chief concern is the lack of privacy. Many people aren’t aware that Last.FM is owned by CBS Interactive; an entertainment company that already runs a massive network of brands including CBS News, CNET, GameSpot, ZDNet, and MetroLyrics.
Is it wise to provide your entire listening history so CBS can further refine its profile on you? Many would argue that the trade-off isn’t worth it.
Secondly, Last.FM has an element of permanence. Do you really want the music you were listening to five or 10 years ago staring back at you every time you open the app? This won’t necessarily be right for everyone, especially if you already use Spotify’s music discovery tools to find new music.
Connect Spotify To Last Fm
Finally, it’s worth mentioning security. Last.FM suffered a substantial data breach in 2012 in which 45 million accounts were compromised. The company did not make the details public until 2016.
Last.FM Alternatives for Scrobbling Spotify
Last.FM isn’t the only scrobbling service in the world. Here are three alternative ways to scrobble your Spotify music.
Universal Scrobbler
Last.fm Spotify App Free
Universal Scrobbler helps to fill in the blanks that Last.FM leaves. It can scrobble music from sources that Last.FM doesn’t support. That includes the radio, your car stereo, and even vinyl records.
Open Scrobbler
Open Scrobbler is a manual scrobbler that lets you control which songs you add to your Last.FM profile. Like Universal Scrobbler, it can also act as a scrobbler for vinyl records.
Vinyl Scrobbler
Command conquer 3 mac download. Our final recommendation is Vinyl Scrobbler. Download files from android to mac. It uses data from Last.FM and Discogs to let vinyl lovers record their listening history and amalgamate it with their Spotify listening history.
Learn How to Do More With Spotify
Using the Last.FM scrobbler to track what you listen to on Spotify is just one of the many ways to get the most out of the music streaming app.
If you’re interested in some of Spotify’s other great features, check out our list of essential Spotify keyboard shortcuts and learn how to set a Spotify playlist as an alarm on Android.
Read the full article: How to Scrobble Your Spotify Music With Last.FM