For those of you who listen to large music collections and are constantly looking for something else to listen to, here’s (yet another?) “If you like X” website: Audioscrobbler! Download a plugin for your media player of choice and it will eventually compare your taste to other folks’ tastes, and start suggesting music you might like.
A neat side feature are the Groups; you can self-identify with as many groups as you like, and see charts showing what your different peer groups are listening to. Finding no group called “Teeming Millions,” I decided to make one called (boring!) “Straight Dope Message Board”. Anyhow, if you’re using Audioscrobbler and interested in knowing what other Dopers listen to, you should join the group.
…because right now the group is just me. And I already know what I listen to.
melon - you need to configue the plugin (adding your scrobbler login/password) so that it can begin submitting on your behalf - currently you don’t show anything submitted.
if you’ve done all that and it’s still not submitting you may have the same problem as me - 90% of my mp3s aren’t tagged with ID3 info, which is apparently a requirement.
My list tends to only have a vague relation to my tastes though. I’ll listen to a new CD all the way through 5 times, and that will push that artist up into my top ten, when they shouldn’t really be there.
They released me too soon from the Home for the Terminally Stupid.
I downloaded the plugin, after which I am told the download is complete but I don’t see anywhere to add user name/password.
Maybe I should forget the technical stuff and stick to just liking music.
Once you install the plug-in (usually by executing the EXE file you downloaded) then the next time you start the appropriate media player, it should give you a login screen. If you tell us which media player you’re using, maybe one of us can walk you through this (I use Windows Media Player here at work, and WinAmp at home).
I got the login screen from WinAmp 5.something and put in the name and password so I will see if this works.
Thanks for all your help. If you walked into my house you would never know I am computer illiterate. My living room is covered in computer parts and in my bedroom, I have three brand new computers that are networked together to play Diablo and the likes.
incidentally, if anyone else has a high % of mp3s without ID3 tags, you might want to check out Mp3 Tag Tools (free from download.com). i just tagged my entire collection in about 30 minutes.
I downloaded AudioScrobbler several months ago, then promptly forgot about it.
I stopped using Winamp and started using foobar2000. I never installed the plug-in for foobar.
My boys (14 & 18) use my PC to listen to music since it’s in the living room, and they use Winamp when they do. So my AudioScrobbler is almost purely Rammstein and Metallica.
Not that I don’t enjoy a little Rammstein and Metallica. I just don’t enjoy it as much as it seems I do on the AS site.
I’ll make sure to download the foobar plug-in tonight when I get home.
I notice you haven’t set up a forum there yet. Were you going to?
Most often, I have huge playlists that I load into Winamp and then let the songs play randomly. Occasionally I’ll listen to full albums, but not all that often, anymore. I love my playlists. Some have 5000 songs on them! Some are only one artist who have several different albums (which is why Happy Rhodes shows up so often. She has her own playlists and is well-represented on others).
I had a hard drive crash a few weeks ago that took 80gb worth of mp3s. I had my entire 1500 CD collection on there and wiped out. I haven’t had a chance to get the majority of them back onto my computer which is why some of my favorite artists aren’t on my lists much. The ones I play were on a hard drive that came out ok (well, not really, but it’s a long story. In any case I was able to get about 30gb of music off before it too died.)
