To be a member of Last.fm, one can have any type of music taste they please. Some profiles declare Britney Spears as goddess of the universe while others swear by independent acts such as William Fitzsimmons. There are the hip-hop lovers and even the classic rock haters. The reality about Last.fm is your music taste is the creator of your identity. You can be whoever you want on the site. Except if you decide to join a group.
I wrote the following for my Cyberculture Project, and it gives a brief overview of the literacy expectancies of Last.fm.
Located beneath the immediate surface of Last.fm is a plethora of “groups,” or forums, built around a single interest. These groups are comprised of Last.fm users who want to gather around similar interests.
The majority of these groups are based around bands, genres, and musical tastes, but there are also groups based around interests other than music. The interesting thing about these groups is Last.fm maintains a musical focus in every group, even if they are based around topics unrelated to music, by listing the collective “top artists” of the group based on the Scrobbled artists of the group members. For instance, there are over 17,000 members in a group called “For those who don’t sleep enough at night for no apparent reason,” and the most listened to artist by the group members is Weezer.
In this sense, the group establishes the type of musical taste expected of members in the group. In the “For those who don’t sleep enough at night for no apparent reason” group description, the person who started the group and moderates it says, “This is what ye all collectively listen to. Nod in agreement or cringe in shame, t'is your call,” and he then proceeds to list the top genres of the group before declaring, “and just for kicks, this is how your leader compares to his own group: His musical preference is 88.55% similar to the For those who don't sleep enough due to staying up late at night for no apparent reason group. Musically, he fits in!”
To join the site, you can be whoever you want. But underlying the governing principles set up by the Last.fm community on the group is an expectation for a particular music taste.
I'm assuming by this you mean that underlying expectations for music literacy (so to speak) is for each individual group, correct? The way you have it phrased seems to suggest that Last.fm as a whole has certain overarching music tastes, but I'm willing to bet there's a significant difference between the people who primarily listen to Slayer and Anthrax compared to those who prefer Justin Beiber.
ReplyDeleteHey, a fellow Last.fm member! I think the charts (top artists/top songs) for different groups and in other parts of the site show that Last.fm renders music a substantive indicator for identity. It already is offline in the real world (i.e. you can know something about a person's identity by knowing their favorite music), but I feel like the quantitative records of music listening on Last.fm – the song plays, loved tracks, charts, etc – make music a more potent identity marker.
ReplyDeletePS: Do you like this site? I've really enjoyed using it =)
I had considered doing last.fm for my initial comparison report but wasn't sure how to find the community underneath. You mention that there are things other than music discussed but when you explain it, its about music so i'm a little confused there. Do you mean that music is tied into every discussion whether or not it is the main focus of the topic?
ReplyDelete