Since last week’s announcement of our track page beta and streaming changes we’ve been receiving tons of feedback. Responses have come via this blog, our discussion forums, and elsewhere, and we’ve been paying attention to both the positive and the negative. The fact that so many of you are taking the time to offer thoughts and constructive criticism means a lot to us.
The team spent the better part of last week looking at a few different improvements we might be able to introduce in response to some of this feedback. In particular, we first wanted to address the requests from the many independent artists who use our Music Manager to upload their tracks directly onto Last.fm.
Our renewed focus on the features that make Last.fm unique — scrobbling, personalised radio, and being the online home for your music taste –– means we won’t be returning our own on-demand track offering. Instead, based on your suggestions, we’ll be connecting people to more streaming services in more countries by the end of the year, partners that focus squarely on providing the best on-demand experience possible and scrobbling it. We also have plenty of new music discovery and exploration improvements coming to the Last.fm website and beyond, helping make your scrobbles even more useful to you.
However, today we’re happy to announce that unsigned artists who hold global rights to their music will soon be able to again offer tracks in full to their fans via their track pages. For the first time, this option will be clearly labeled as “Play direct from artist”, and the plays will scrobble via an improved player. As with the previous “full-length preview” option this replaces, these plays are considered promotional and don’t accrue royalties via the Artist Royalty Programme. In fact there are no further changes to the ARP, so as before, plays on Last.fm radio will continue to earn royalties. We hope this helps close the scrobbling loop for artists who can’t easily get exposure for their music on other services.
We’ll also be looking at other improvements for music manager artists, including better ways of showcasing promoted tracks on your artist profile and the ability to link your account to content you may host elsewhere. However our top priority is to get the work done on the new “Play direct from artist” feature and release it as soon as possible. The next available slot to go live with this functionality is in the third week of May. Pushing new updates live on a site with more than 40 million users a month takes time — not just for development but also QA, testing, and translation into 12 languages!
We’ll follow up this post in a couple of days with another one where Matt Knapman will explain a little more about the development process at Last.fm, how we gathered your feedback, and a little about plans for community support as a whole. In the meantime, keep it coming.
Comments
soadize
21 April, 17:01
thanks :)
Babs
21 April, 17:05
Excellent. Thanks. : )
Muggy
21 April, 17:09
well it is a step in the right direction.. but no flags quite yet.
Butcherball
21 April, 17:09
Thank you!
StudleyUK
21 April, 17:15
But will the full tracks scrobble…? ;)
Matthew Ogle
21 April, 17:17
@StudleyUK:
Duh. ;)
cherrybomb66
21 April, 17:28
We met halfway…thank you! (but, if you want to add full track previews for all some day again…I will be overjoyed)
The Singing Microwave
21 April, 17:31
Ok guys. You’re officially not evil this week, keep it up.
DepotGhost
21 April, 17:34
I will NOT be renewing my subscription just to be redirected to other sites…
This site was NOT broken – you didn’t need to louse it up and BREAK YOUR PROMISES!!!
I will NEVER knowingly buy or play any artist even remotely connected with CBS ever again!
You have left a very bad impression of corporate greed upon tens of thousands of young people worldwide…
A SAD day’s work all round!!
CrybKeeper
21 April, 17:41
OM gosh! THANK YOU staff, for the artist full streams! I will spread the word on this latest news ;)
Especially loving this news: “We’ll also be looking at other improvements for music manager artists, including better ways of showcasing promoted tracks on your artist profile and the ability to link your account to content you may host elsewhere.”
ds
21 April, 17:41
That’s not really better but you try to sell it as something that is.
Still shame on you! I want the full track listening for all bands back! Not only the independent bands! And no, those stupid fucked up Spotify and whatever links do not work for me as I live in Germany! ò_Ó The “new” LastFM sucks the only thing you see is $ and don’t sell us this as improvement.
Ian
21 April, 17:50
Much better, thanks!
Now for the API/economy that allows third-party streaming hosts to embed a track-player widget in the pages, please :) Ian
blockproject
21 April, 17:53
it would also be nice for independent artists to be able to access & track listeners, notifying people of new releases, etc. the journal or news isn’t good enough, some kind of mailing, user listener list would be nice
thanks,
-b
St0rm
21 April, 17:59
Well… at least as an independent artist we can provide the listeners of our music with future releases in full length. But the fact remains many people will view you as corporate greed machine. You really went over the line here with this “update.” because what seems for you as an UPdate is for tens of thousands a DOWNturn.
I personally believe the only reason you’re doing this is to prevent a mass exodus to your up and coming competition. But let opinions be, at least your half way intelligent enough to return full track streaming to the little guys.
pascal
21 April, 18:02
Ah does this mean we’ll finally be able to create playlists of free tracks that actually can be used for anything? (No 1000 track limit, no randomisation). Also: just being able to play a full album (in the right order) from the artist page would be cool. If they allow it, of course.
agroangus
21 April, 18:04
Yep, thanks!
dirtypretything
21 April, 18:20
So will independent artists’ full tracks be made available on 3. week of may or will it be sooner and some other update will take place on may? English is not my native language, so i didn’t understand that part.
Loren
21 April, 18:26
Glad to see full track preview for indie artists will be coming back! Thanks.
As others have mentioned, it would be nice for us indie artists to have a way (thru music manager) to embed widget players (ie soundcloud) so last.fm users can preview a song without leaving the site. Soundcloud has the most amazing stream quality I’ve ever heard.
Aetherius
21 April, 18:26
Might there be any effort to promote those direct from artist tracks beyond their merely being available, along the same lines as the free downloads?
For example: in the radio, some sort of signifier that shows when an artist has direct from artist previews available.
Something like that would be a help, as the knowledge that other tracks by that artist might be available to preview would attract scrobbles on those other tracks, and give a boost to unsigned artists. Whereas without such a signifier, listeners might assume that there are no full previews available, and potentially miss out on an artist they would otherwise have enjoyed.
Greta
21 April, 18:32
Thank you so much for listening, from the bottom of my heart!
I have a question, though:
>>However, today we’re happy to announce that unsigned artists who hold global rights to their music will soon be able to again offer tracks in full to their fans via their track pages.<<
How will this system work? I have some music which I made and own, as well some which I uploaded on behalf of the artist/owners who entrusted me to represent them on Last FM as a friend or member of their groups. A lot of this music is uploaded under “labels”, but these are chiefly DIY ventures or for-LastFM-only “labels”, and not labels in the proper sense of the word. Does this mean that these artists will be considered “signed” and automatically disqualified from the above offer??
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Peter-David Smith
21 April, 18:41
Good. Excellent news. Thanks for listening to the people.
shadesofice
21 April, 18:44
This is very reasonable, especially to the unknown and lesser artists.
fmera
21 April, 18:51
but will this transition to the “play direct from artist” mode be a simple and painless one for all affected artists, so we won’t see a slow take-up rate that will hamper the return to the status quo of pre-april 12th?
i certainly hope all affected artists will be shown some courtesy and be individually notified in timely fashion this time round, to ensure they’re all in the loop and kept up to speed with the changes.
RAC
21 April, 19:00
This is great for independent artists but what about Last.fm’s subscribers? They pay a fee to last.fm with the expectation of being able to play full tracks. What are they paying for now? Charts and graphs? Wake up Last.fm! You are overestimating your business model.
Lurholm
21 April, 19:17
Sounds good to me! Thanks for taking our objections and suggestions into consideration.
Mike Walls
21 April, 19:32
This is a definite improvement on having nothing at all. But this is only a half turn isn’t it. But still not worth worrying about not being able to play. Songs by the greedy few. That only ever amounted to less that 1%. Of my total plays amassed on the website anyway.
But I still await news on the track sharing facility. That was available among fellow likeminded listeners. Before LastFM decided to implode on itself over a week ago. Here’s hoping that becomes available again by mid to late May. As mentioned here.
And let’s hope it was all worth the initial disillusionment. Followed by the uproar at what happened here. I’m really glad that at least one of the suits. Decided to see at least a little sense at long last.
Alastair
21 April, 19:36
Definitely a positive move- thanks for listening to user feedback!- but I’d also like to ask about ‘signed’ artists. There are a lot of small indie labels around that would be happy to waive royalties in order to get exposure for their artists. Can you confirm whether it will be possible for labels to do a similar thing (ie set tracks for free streaming) as well as ‘unsigned’ artists? Often the margins are blurred, and it would be a real shame if being signed to a small independent label ends up disadvantaging artists on last.fm and limiting their exposure.
Mark Drifter
21 April, 19:37
I never uploaded little clips of my tracks, I uploaded full length previews for people to enjoy. Yet you changed this without even informing me. This is not the main issue though. Music is not a clip or an advert, its art, you don’t fucking chop a painting in half. What you have done is an insult.
Set it strait.
QWE
21 April, 19:38
I feel bad for subscribers and I certainly will never pay to subscribe in the future with this change…
Third party development on a website like this will not end well. The last.fm streaming player wasn’t the best, but at least I knew what I was getting with last.fm
Christian Munthe
21 April, 19:40
I’m one of those artists. For me this new solution is much worse, since I need to get myself server-space to set up a “track page”. So for us artists this is not an improvement, and I see no point at all in the change, since the full tracks are on the last.fm servers anyway. It doesn’t make sense, unless the explanation is that you guys hired some sorry marketing/branding wizz, who tries to justify his invoices.
OLdSKuul62
21 April, 19:41
Definateley happy for the unsigned artists
Now the really large question .WHICH “PARTNER” will host the rare hard to find tracks ?
chot
21 April, 19:52
Bringing back full-length plays for independant artists then? We’ll see how that will work. If it doesn’t work like this, forget about it:
There shall be Play buttons inside an album infront of all titles replacing the preview buttons (such as it was): Will play the full stream, scrobble and allow to like, bookmark, comment, add to library, etc just as with any other radio-played tracks. No playing previews anywhere… (why play a preview if there is a full-length version available?). Also, play buttons for the album on the artist page. Such as it was before.
Only then it is acceptable people invest the double amount of time to upload, label their music etc… If it’s not like this but instead becomes a damn hassle for users who heard a nice track on the radio and wanted to listen to more of the same artist… I will not publish on Last.fm anymore and remove my content.
I feel Last.fm losing major relevance on the internet with these changes if they don’t quickly revert their mistake, others will step in who indeed want to invest in the bandwidth charges caused by on-demand streams. If ad impressions don’t pay out for the bandwidth used, something’s wrong here. Rethink your business plans and your investors if you can’t even allow independant artists to showcase their full music (it doesn’t cost you a thing in license).
I’ve already moved all my tracks to Bandcamp and removed all Last.fm links from the sites I am on. And I will be watching the future changes very closely, but if the revert does not make me happy (e.g. just a hassle for users), I’ll delete for sure.
Good luck saving your biz! You really pissed off your artists.
martind
21 April, 19:53
Christian Munthe — Last.fm will still host this content. No need to get your own server space.
iSkiaPod
21 April, 19:55
I’m happy for the independant artists and will continue to search for new music to be played in full. However, I’m still not happy to be forced onto third party players. It’s not just about the subscription, I don’t mind paying to listen and I’d rather do that than have my screen covered in commercials or to have my listening stream interrupted by same. BUT, they DON’T have ALL the music I found to listen to hear on Last.
And we STILL haven’t seen an apology from Last for NOT giving us any warning of the action they took. It’s as if the rail company said – “We’re not running trains any more – take a cab or a bus and don’t bother coming back”
BillStrange
21 April, 20:11
I’m still a little confused by the release wording. Does this mean that LFM will host our full length tracks and link to those hosted tracks from our Artist Pages, or will we be forced to host the tracks on an external site with a mechanism provided to us for linking directly to that site for full length previews?
Lurholm
21 April, 20:15
Greta makes a valid point here. Most DIY “labels” on last.fm are virtual labels – in my own case, I created a “label” to assemble all my different projects and monikers under one umbrella – and should not be treated like actual labels under this new system. The way to go would be to have a checkbox in the MusicManager where, like Alastair says, we could waive our royalties in exchange for full length play.
skiesrblue
21 April, 20:20
Well…. I still think that its going to signal the beginning of the end… if the artists are not here and I have to go to another service to find them…then ultimately my starting point will start to be the other services… I do like the scrobbling and data… and will probably leave the scrobble on when I play my own tracks…
On principle…I think its unlikely I will want to link Spotify etc etc et al to the lastfm account… why would I?
I also will most likely not renew my subscription. I feel I ought to explain why. I realise that I wasnt just paying for full streaming…I am one of those odd individuals that was paying a subscription…because I loved LastFM and was happy to support it… This became clear to me as it was the ONE place I went to stream music…..if I wasnt playing it myself…I was streaming it from LastFM and taking advantage of the community as well…… and using that community to search for new music and the lesser known or indeed unknown artists…
I think they – the artists – will move on and I wont find them here anymore. So if they are not here….why would I pay for scrobbling data alone.. I dont want random radio plays by the way…..
Ultimately I think there are a lot of people out there like me…
I could be wrong…but hey…if I am wrong…then maybe there will be a thread like this next year…where the likes of me can admit they were wrong… I will then happily post and say so…
….its unlikely I will be subscribing though….By that time Spotify will probably have my money and I will have moved on to the prime site…not the inbetweenie site..
Lets see eh?
ben
21 April, 21:28
I don’t understand why. Surely streams from the site are better for last.fm than streams from the radio, as streams on the site are more likely to result in ad clicks than the radio. weird….
gp
21 April, 22:51
thank you last.fm – and please don’t miss the focus of your plans – we know you are going better and better :))
Marssuit
21 April, 23:14
Nothing you plan do matters because it was fine the way it was before all of this. Every day more and more things become only about making $$$. The money keeps infecting more people more things in our culture everyday…where does this road eventually lead? I will no longer be recommending last.fm.
maz
21 April, 23:16
To the people asking if they’ll need to find their own hosting, I think its pretty clear that last.fm will host the files like they always did. They will want the tracks on the radio too.
Also don’t discount the value of the radio, I’ve discovered many artists I’d never have known(including independents) without it.
EugeneWilder
21 April, 23:41
Matt Ogle, etc, you’re still all a bunch of tools. So I will no longer be able to listen to “Queen – Radio GaGa” full track preview on last.fm, because they are not an Indie artist, or use your precious “Music Manager” option? well then, let me contact my good friends Brian May, John Deacon, and Roger Taylor regarding this. oh, as well as David Goodman, Fred McIntyre, and the general counsel at CBS Interactive HQ in San Francisco. I’ll get back to you, but in the meantime, HAPPY SCROBBLING! :D
Jacob Godserv
21 April, 23:49
I think it’s great that last.fm is giving independent artists a way to advertise their music, but I wish other songs could occur within last.fm’s pages, and stream from third-party ones, for the best convenience.
Right now it’s very frustrating trying to keep these two services (MOG and last.fm) in sync in terms of tagging and whatnot.
Tom
22 April, 00:05
Thanks for accommodating us independents!
cynical man
22 April, 00:46
A cynical man might say this is a cunning way of getting artists to give for free what you paid them for before (not much admittedly, but more than radio plays)
and thank you for it!
anyway, thanks. There must have been a way of handling this that didn’t involve pissing everyone off though
Jim Giddings
22 April, 01:31
If I have uploaded videos to my artist page, are they now just gone for good? I found that it was much faster to upload a video to last.fm than to YouTube, which often rejects uploads for no obvious reason, or just goes on “uploading” forever without making the video available. I do not look forward to going through that process and wish you could at least make the already-uploaded videos available through YouTube without our having to go through the painful process of locating the originals and uploading them again.
If I have uploaded audio tracks and want to make them “play direct from artist”, do I have to upload them again?
Jimi
22 April, 01:34
“…unsigned artists who hold global rights… …soon be able to again offer tracks in full to their fans via their track pages…”
Excellent, thank you.
Not only is that the thing I wanted to hear, I think you’ve avoided handed MySpace the ball.
BillStrange
22 April, 06:04
Upon review, good news indeed for the Independent and MM Artists.
“We’ll also be looking at other improvements The ability to link your account to content you may host elsewhere”.
It would great to have this implemented ASAP also.
Thank you for listening.
abitgone
22 April, 07:51
“As with the previous “full-length preview” option this replaces, these plays are considered promotional and don’t accrue royalties via the Artist Royalty Programme.”
Translates to:
“We’ve found a loophole that allows us to use indie artist’s content without actually paying them, but we’ll say this is a ‘good thing’ and people won’t notice…”
This is why I didn’t renew my subscription.
Dan
22 April, 08:19
This is excellent news! Thanks for listening to us :)
Moira
22 April, 09:41
I like the charts and graphs just fine, but they’re not worth paying a lot for, and the way you just yanked full-length streaming tracks away without any warning was really kind of shocking. I don’t like Spotify, and Hypem’s tracks are very limited and perishable compared to what Last.fm used to have. I won’t be renewing my subscription.
David Singleton
22 April, 11:35
Not really. This is something we’ve offered to artists since before the Artists Royalties Program, the ability to mark content as “promotional” or to set it completely free (downloads).
Artists/Labels can still receive royalties on radio plays, nothing has changed there.
Sigurdór Guðmundsson
22 April, 12:45
Great news! Thank you! :)
thevitaminb12
22 April, 14:11
thanks last.fm for taking independent artists into consideration.
your seemingly unnecessary lack of foresight when implementing last week’s changes was so blatant that maybe you actually wanted us to squeal, and squeal loud.
i assume it was in order to impress upon cbs that this is an active community of people, with a wide spectrum of needs, priorities and interests, not just a user interface for peddling product.
if this is the case, many thanks for that. your efforts are appreciated.
love alasdair
xx
Daniel
22 April, 14:14
Thanks for the news. Don’t kick the users and artist! The music is freedom and it’s free. That is meaning of all.
Stretchead
22 April, 15:21
I have my band on here and a few solo songs. I was planning on putting any money I made back into promotion anyway. I’m only interested in getting my music heard.
The decision to let unknown artists go full length without payment angers me for one simple reason: It enlarges the gap between “rich” and “poor”. Please correct me if you think I’m wrong
Martin Dittus
22 April, 15:49
Stretchead, and others — I would actually argue that this feature puts the unsigned/independent artist in an advantageous position (the artist or label that still owns all their rights: copyright, mechanicals, publishing, …).
It shows that they’re able to promote their music in a way that no “signed” artist can, and they can decide to do so without having to get permission from anyone else.
Stretchead
22 April, 16:42
I’m not so sure about that, it obviously depends on lastfm listeners’ habits- they can at least decide if they want to listen full length, which is a very good thing, yes.
I just liked the idea that ALL artists on lastfm were in the same boat and now you’re making a second boat for the “rest” of us. Where will that lead to?
Christopher
22 April, 20:44
Your next release for development now is in one month? Ever heard of continuous deployment? ;)
Silhouetted Interface
22 April, 23:54
You know… This REALLY fucks over artists who are signed to independent labels. This fucks them over HARD.
The Offlines
23 April, 01:19
Could the featured videos receive the same treatment as their music for unsigned artists (i.e. play video directly from artist)?
We’re getting into HTML5 age, after all (:
David Beadsmore
23 April, 01:35
Thank you for listening to your users.
I don’t expect you were quite prepared for the storm of upset people when you removed full length streaming. You said that it wasn’t a highly used feature. BUT maybe in comparison to the amount of people listening to Lady Gaga or whatever, it wasn’t highly used, but for small labels and independent artists it was invaluable as a way to share our music.
I for one, don’t care about the royalties, I just want to share my music and get feedback from listeners so I can make better music in future. I’m sure a lot of us little guys would feel the same way.
It would be nice for small labels if they could have the CHOICE to offer full length tracks on demand and waive royalties as necessary as a method of promoting their music. I know in the past I have heard great new music on LastFM and have then gone out and bought the cd.
I hope the new system works in a similar way to the full track streaming and listeners can choose which track or album they hear.
I thank you for listening for sure!!!
Dave
Jon Dye
23 April, 02:35
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I cannot stress that enough. Last.fm is the most convenient and the most sensible way for me to promote my music once again. :D
gertietheduck
23 April, 09:20
Hi Martin
Could you give us an update re: my query about artists that are on virtual/DIY “labels” on Last FM?
>>It shows that they’re able to promote their music in a way that no “signed” artist can<<
Please could you clarify what “signed” here means? Does it mean that if we have a Music Manager label (which might not exist as such in real-life as a business but may just be a convenient way for us to manage and group together more than one artist/pseudonym), then we will be automatically disqualified from all of the above?
Apologies if my query has already been dealt whith, but I could not spot an answer anywhere…
Thanks so much.
Best,
Greta
flag
23 April, 09:57
Will these full tracks be available to all last.fm users and not only subscribers or inhabitants of US, UK, Germany?
David
23 April, 11:48
I think this should be put on the xbox 360 last.fm service has that would be so good.
Chamalla33
23 April, 13:31
I simply do not understand why LastFM is trying to ‘fix’ something that was never broken in the first place. I used to evangelize to everyone about the glories of “LastFM” – friends, family, pigeons on the street – and now I am sad to say that not only will I NOT be renewing my subscription, I will no longer recommend LastFM to ANYONE. I used to be very active in sharing tracks within the community – since the new changes (the sudden revocation of full track previews) I have stopped sharing tracks. There seems to be little point to it now. And forcing the user to go to ANOTHER website (spotify, grooveshark, etc, whatever) is just stupid. It’s a hassle to the user, and it leaks traffic away from LastFM. I would sincerely like to do know WHY LastFM’s masters decided to make this awful decision. Yes I have read the forums, read the ‘explanations’ from staff, but frankly it all sounds like corporate double speak. I think it all comes down to the greed monster.
There was NOTHING wrong with the service as it was. You have alienated and pissed off your user base, and the artists. Way to go LastFM/CBS. Be sure to raise a toast to the MBA geniuses who suggested these changes. Score:1 – for greed.
chazee
23 April, 14:29
Good thing, thanks!
N808a4
23 April, 16:13
A good solution. I’d thought unsigned and underground artists being able to use Last.fm as a base of operations was a really cool idea and was sorry to see it go. Glad it’s back.
gimmeemotion
23 April, 16:33
I am pleased that the situation for truly independent artists has been somewhat redressed. I still lament the other impacts of the recent changes.
Unfortunately, “Community” was the true uniqueness of LastFM. It has been destroyed now that friends and neighbours cannot conveniently listen to most of each other’s entire track scrobbled tracks / recommendations.
Furthermore – and I have commented on this previously – not only are all the current partner sites extremely inconvenient (and bordering on the offensive in one case!), but they are not accessible via the two corporate networks I regularly use (URL’s are blocked by corporate net-nanny programs). So, the new service is not equivalent in any way to LastFM’s value-proposition to the core music-loving users whose opinions have been posted in these threads. I am sure millions of users are in a similar position and that LastFM’s advertising revenue will suffer as a consequence of this.
I’ve actually been anticipating commercialization of this nature since CBS acquired LastFM a couple of years ago. As we all should know, bean-counter decision-making (aimed at maximizing revenues short-term profit) invariably prevails in large corporations. Fortunately for us, this short-sightedness quickly provides the opportunity and incentive for entrepreneurs to step-up with a new and improved service and business model which not only fills the ‘demand vaccuum’ but bleeds a substantial portion of revenues from the ‘business-as-usual’ company competing in the commodity market.
Are you reading this LastFM geeks???
I’m confident you are :)
Fabien
23 April, 17:26
A bad solution. Only nerds and promoters will be around last.fm in the near future.
Why should people visit your site now? Why should they tag?, recommend a track?, post a comment? edit the wikis?, upload artist pictures?
Also, why did you cut the royalties of these free streams? I still see ads and the indie streams will be the only reason why people will visit your site. These royalties were low for most, but this was a very important symbolic point for most.
The new concept is born to die. You had no competition before – know you’re even competing with facebook’s new decentral I Like feature, which will quickly replace scrobbling for most.
Last.fm was kind of a MUSIC WIKIPEDIA for most – and in my opinion the only reason why people got in touch with your service. Now it’s gone.
The most strange thing is, there seems to be absolutely now protests from the last.fm employees – stand up!! you know how stupid this “update” is, thousands of (moslty experienced last.fm users) are behind you.
buggytunes
23 April, 17:40
As an indie artist I’m still not so sure if this new system is going to be that great for us? To me it sounds more like being promised a nice big juicy apple and actually just getting handed a small grape, or raisin even! At least all that still remains to be seen, and all we can do is just wait for that now.
As a user- after the march 25th.09 update (I was a subscriber until that one- since march 08) and being resident in Denmark-outside the “big 3” which basically means I can’t even play the radio at all, since then (except for a 30 track trial)- I was very much only having the “privilege” of the very few fully streamable tracks I could find here anyway..
I do hope that for last.fm sake- that it isn’t about to shoot it self in the foot by forcing to use other sites now which just might end up getting to be the main for a lot of users who doesn’t really care that much for statistics,- but for the music!…and preferably in 1 click too! – get it? ;)
Dan
23 April, 19:58
This is okay with me, please, just don’t ever merge with a social networking site, i.e. myspace or facebook or even twitter. KEEP IT ABOUT THE MUSIC. please?
Susanne
23 April, 22:56
This is a step in the right direction. Thanks! Now it remains to be seen whether it will be as good as it sounds.
Soa
24 April, 00:06
Full track Listening should be offer for subscribers.
kellplanet
24 April, 04:42
Great..thanks!
lsudny (DJ_Pekka_19)
24 April, 06:17
Can’t you bring back the player? :|
Qrobur
24 April, 15:03
With this decision: >> Our renewed focus on the features that make Last.fm unique — scrobbling, personalised radio, and being the online home for your music taste –– means we won’t be returning our own on-demand track offering. <<
this:
>> However, today we’re happy to announce that unsigned artists who hold global rights to their music will soon be able to again offer tracks in full to their fans via their track pages. <<
is pretty much neither here nor there.
What made last.fm strong was not scrobbling but community. If people can’t share full tracks they’ll stop sharing. If they stop sharing, ‘unsigned artists’ will find that it won’t matter a jot if they upload their music to last.fm; too few will be listening.
You people need to get your heads out of your arses and restore full tracks full stop.
Greta
24 April, 18:37
Hmm… I just tried uploading some new stuff to my Facebook music page today, but all the tracks for the band in question are too large, no matter how low I make the bitrate. In the past I would have just uploaded to last FM and posted a link, thus encouraging people to visit this site… but now that’s completely pointless. I will add these tracks onto Last FM, but the site is now useless for promotion, unless people are already users…
If I have to upload tracks somewhere else (I am still looking for an adequate substitute), I would post a link to that somewhere else, not to Last FM!
But I love Last FM. Most alternative sites are useless for me as a musician. I do not make 5mins pop tracks. My files are large and these tracks cannot be cut up! As a loyal user here, I implore you… please make the promised changes as fast as possible, so that we can share our music through Last FM once more and not resort to other, lesser options in the interim…
Also, and sorry for asking once more, please do inform us about the “labels” issue in my comments above.
Many thanks!
Greta
Martin Dittus
24 April, 18:48
Greta — I don’t think we’re going to make any big changes in our Music Manager Terms & Conditions as they relate to this feature. As long as you’re in a position to provide us with the blanket license we need and all the rights-holders are OK with it you’re welcome to use this.
(Us saying this is a feature is for the “unsigned artist” is just shorthand for saying “the person who uploads music must be either in full control of all musical rights, or must have cleared it with all rights holders of the respective production.” The choice of this term is maybe a bit unfortunate, so feel free to suggest something better that’s equally descriptive.)
july
24 April, 19:20
“a step in the right direction” ? – Well, kind of. First you cut off indie artists and now you’re calling it an ‘improvement’ to give them back their full-length previews – something’s fishy here…
last.fm is (or was) a really cool platform. Why can you (CBS) not make that little bit of money elsewhere and rather think of last.fm as a promotional tool that attracts listeners exactly because it gives them a few things for free?
Don’t tell me the last.fm royalty programme or on-demand royalties were making you go bankrupt. I just cannot believe that.
So, please, stop ‘improving’ the site. It was almost perfect 2 months ago.
I’ll go count my $$$ now…
Greta
24 April, 19:34
Thank you, Martin!
johnTMcNeill
24 April, 20:59
Yes- thank you Martin. That is a very simple and effective answer, and I appreciate it. Boy, we could have sure used you on the BIG Forum…
Jessica
25 April, 03:02
No thank you, Martin, no.
You took my money and then took away a main feature without providing any alternative here in germany.
Why do you make the second step first? It’s so deeply frustrating.
I’ve been joyfully sending and receiving recommendations on beloved tracks. You stopped this. It’s completely useless!
You make my life poorer and you make me angry.
Whizzbizz
25 April, 10:55
Once there was a site I loved to go to…
LION-MAN
25 April, 19:43
The way I see it, CBS/Last.fm have decided in their “wisdom” to cut costs and remove the full track streaming. The argument for that is “the majority” of LFM users/subscribers did not use full track streaming. The reason that users of that facility show as a minority is the fact it wasn’t available to everyone around the world, and therefore is not a true representation of LFM listeners figures.Surely Last.fm, you can read the comments on here and also the ‘group’ that was started for users to vent their thoughts on. You could make EVERYONE happy in one move…. turn full track streaming back on, for ALL subscribers, and those that are happy with just 30 second previews can listen free, or a lower subscription, and those of us that want full tracks will gladly pay MORE for our subscription! It’s got to be a win,win situation… you get extra revenue, and we get get the service we are happy with! ‘nuff said…
RG
25 April, 20:41
I still miss the full track streaming across the board – nothing will change that – but it’s very good to see that the feedback is being listened to (re artists who want to make their music available for streaming)… Just a thought – does Last FM have any way to make a “page” of those who will have their music available for full streaming? Some sort of link with a list of the available artists? It’d make it a bit easier to sort out who’s available via Last FM after the next update is implemented. (If someone already asked that, forgive me, my eyes are crossing from reading all the forum responses and I might have missed it…)
23 SECONDS NETLABEL
25 April, 21:28
I did not expected this to happend, but hey – Excellent news!
Martin Dittus
25 April, 23:16
RG — I’d expect that such a list would be too big to display on any one page in a meaningful manner. But also note that there already are site sections like last.fm/music/+free-music-downloads which lists at least some of the downloadable content, and last.fm/home/freemp3s which lists recommended downloads for your account.
(Yes downloads are different from free promos, but I’m using this as an example of how historically Last.fm always preferred to present things by putting them in a context as opposed to just dumping them somewhere. Nobody would browse a list of millions of items.)
RG
25 April, 23:39
Martin, that’s a great point, and one I hadn’t thought of when I posted the question. Thanks again for taking the time to read and respond to this thread.
_voice
26 April, 05:46
Thanks for thinking about independent artists this time around. After a series of kicks in the nuts over the last few months many independent artists I know left last.fm already. But nice to see that this time there is some communication with the rest of us, who haven’t given up completely on you.
Well, I started searching other places to promote my music and found many better than Last.fm, so thanks for making me do that. But I’m not leaving completely YET.
The removal of full length streaming was a twisted idea and I’m not sure what kind of drugs were involved. But telling the people about the three services for streaming instead was a good way of openly taking a dump on your users: – One service is closed beta and only available in a few countries. – The second costs money and is only available in a few countries. – The third one at least works if they have a track available in a quality that doesn’t make your ears bleed, but is only “kind of legal”.
But what I really wanted to write about is this blog post. Seriously guys:
- “the features that make Last.fm unique” : Big words. Let’s see.
- “scrobbling” : What? In my music player I have three services set up I scrobble to and there are more out there.
- “personalised radio” : WTF? That has been around for years. Even before webbased things like Pandora there were software solutions like IRate, Gnomoradio and more.
- “and being the online home for your music taste” : Yawn. I won’t even comment on that.
Maybe you should cut back a little and talk openly with your users. You know, have a constructive discussion instead of – whatever these blog posts are. Save the advertisement talk for advertisement…
It would be way easier to read your blog posts if one wasn’t so busy being torn apart between outrage and falling from the chair laughing.
stephen gard
27 April, 06:20
Thank you. It’s heartening to know that you ARE listening.
Today’s unknown + independent can be tomorrow’s mega+best+seller+ever. They have to start somewhere + be heard there.
SDG
Kevin Moor
27 April, 13:11
Oh well. No streaming. No real benefit in continuing to subscribe. I’ll keep my money from now on.
docsneider
27 April, 15:47
I hate CBS and last.fm
fatirhidayat
27 April, 16:19
Peace,
NicheCheap Nike Shoes
28 April, 07:01
Ok, thank u for sharing
CarryBagMan
28 April, 09:03
We have never put music anywhere else except Last.fm.
And now the first Google hit takes people to a place where they can’t even hear our music without downloading it first.
So you’re gonna fix that. Great.
Except there’s so many people pissed off with what you’ve done that we’re wondering whether there’s gonna be anyone left to listen once you get round to fixing it.
Time was we’d get regular email updates about what Last.fm was doing, but you just hid these changes away on a blog that people maybe don’t check.
I wonder why that might be?
Reavsey1
28 April, 13:49
OK I am a bit confused. I chose to allow the full tracks to be previewed on my albums. That functuionality now seems to have ceased. I would like people to be able to play/ptreview my tracks in full again. Will this be possible?
Alex Deacon
28 April, 14:22
Well done. You have managed to save both face and do the right thing. Keep up the good work.
Michael Brückner
28 April, 15:04
Hi, LastFM Team.
Thank You, that’s good news!!
I appreciate very much Your openmindedness to small artists’ needs and complaints, and I’m looking forward to the “Play direct from artist” feature :-)
Peace,
Michael
Beddoes
28 April, 16:03
Hi,
I just wanted to say i appreciate the pressures of whats going on, and outsourcing your on demand streaming to other scrobble-able sources such as spotify and hypem are fine by me. You could only listen to tracks on demand three times anyway!
So long as the scrobbling, recommended events and personalised radio keep on coming, im a fan for life.
Got in from a night out at the weekend and a bunch of us were up until 4 am going through some truly mental tracks on my xbox. Some excellent humour ‘peado pop’ – Michael Jackson – The Lost Children and Gary Glitter to boot. The photos add a new dimension too.
Shmaughn
28 April, 17:57
Can’t say this is a complete improvement.
I’m with CarryBagMan: way to obscure the problem. This issue should be one the front page
postdawn nurseries
28 April, 17:59
um, MP3.com! Feels familiar to that.
CBS, can you see your toes? Do you care?
Max
29 April, 11:24
Well, wonder why you required an community upoar to discover that you cut out elemental parts of last.fm.
I was a subscriber last year when you could create full streaming playlists and stuff like that. It was a great tool for music discovery at the right price (around 2.5eur then).
Now I will not consider it again but move on.
Consumers will move along:
http://www.deezer.com
http://mixtape.me
http://www.jamendo.com
http://musicovery.com
http://www.pandora.com
http://grooveshark.com/
http://www.spotify.com/
http://www.we7.com/
http://mog.com/
Indie Producers will move along:
Soundcloud
Magnatune
CDBaby
TuneCore
Hypem
Bitspace
Byebye Last.fm
P.s. You probably started to die when you excluded most of the world from listening, why? Because that destroyed diversity of scrobbling data submitted. It destroyed global taste, leaving last.fm with an americo-euro-centristic view onto music => lots less to discover.
Knight_Rider
29 April, 16:29
@Max: Got exactly the same impression as you do.
Will miss the old l.fm very much, never regarded the “personal radio” as a core feature (as it seems to be if you read the blog post), as i thought that all the features l.fm offered in general were too good to be true.
well, seems that you’ll have to accept the sentence “too good to be true” at face value now :-(
also i even sent a couple of friends here before, all of them are disappointed now and probably won’t come back… very bad year for l.fm… sorry, but i just can’t understand.
at least “free” artists can upload songs here again, good for them… but that’s actually not the reason I came here.
Now… there’s also grooveshark, thank godness…
Mark Dreyer
29 April, 20:45
“I feel bad for subscribers and I certainly will never pay to subscribe in the future with this change…
Third party development on a website like this will not end well. The last.fm streaming player wasn’t the best, but at least I knew what I was getting with last.fm”
QWE
I agree with QWE – last.fm s ability to be a one stop meet – greet – hear a full track – share it with a Friend – scrobble it – but most importantly to hear tracks in full – for the first time and say WOW! that sounds great [even if the entire album was not full tracks the sampling of some full tracks gave us a taste] – and if I loved a track – off to to Amazon or iTunes I would go – and BUY the DC or MP3 – and I would also send that FULL TRACK to my Friends to hype it up and then they might buy! it worked! — and now – I am greatly dissapointed and angry at this policy change – I am now registered on Playlist – Grooveshark – Mog and a couple of others – trying to shop for a site that IS as good as LFM WAS – and is no more!!!!! Either you don’t “get it” or there are bigger things at work here [$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$] and it is a shame.
LostChord_Mark
LostChord_Mark
29 April, 20:48
“I feel bad for subscribers and I certainly will never pay to subscribe in the future with this change…
Third party development on a website like this will not end well. The last.fm streaming player wasn’t the best, but at least I knew what I was getting with last.fm”
QWE
I agree with QWE – last.fm s ability to be a one stop meet – greet – hear a full track – share it with a Friend – scrobble it – but most importantly to hear tracks in full – for the first time and say WOW! that sounds great [even if the entire album was not full tracks the sampling of some full tracks gave us a taste] – and if I loved a track – off to to Amazon or iTunes I would go – and BUY the DC or MP3 – and I would also send that FULL TRACK to my Friends to hype it up and then they might buy! it worked! — and now – I am greatly dissapointed and angry at this policy change – I am now registered on Playlist – Grooveshark – Mog and a couple of others – trying to shop for a site that IS as good as LFM WAS – and is no more!!!!! Either you don’t “get it” or there are bigger things at work here [$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$] and it is a shame.
LostChord_Mark
Yay!
30 April, 02:03
How about you improve how Last.fm deals with multiple artist with the same name?
K, Thanks.
gurdonark
30 April, 03:24
I am pleased to hear that independent artists can resume full streaming on last.fm.
The huge concentration of Creative Commons/netlabel artists here was a big draw for me. This is a real step forward.
I also have enjoyed getting to appreciate last.fm radio more than I did before. It’s really a pleasant way to find new artists to hear.
doublelibra
30 April, 04:31
I’m glad I only paid for a 3-month renewal. I will not be terribly likely to renew now that I can’t just play a full track when I want to. This is the worst thing to happen since MySpace devoured and ruined Imeem. I bought quite a bit of music based on tracks I heard here, and passed things along to others, too.
Good Person
30 April, 09:17
Yes, “play direct from artist!”
dave
30 April, 21:32
The only reason I paid was so I could listen to the full tracks. Now that it’s gone, I’m not gonna be paying anymore.
If you can’t listen to your users over this colossal mistake, well you deserve to go down in flames.
And the “play direct from artist” what is that even supposed to mean? I’m hoping your not shifting the burden onto the small artists (i.e. they have to host the file themselves, and all you do is link to it, not host it).
I won’t be renewing until we get a full featured play track system back like it used to be. And I hope enough people are annoyed and irritated to do the same thing. Money talks, and if you thought you were saving money/being smart business wise, I hope you learn we users are fickle and will bite back hard.
Amir
1 May, 14:05
Dear last.fm
Pay as much attention to new artists around the world as you to scrobbling.
Please consider my humble request seriously.
Thank you,
Amir
WaveRider
1 May, 17:11
As an independent artist who upload content to last.fm, I am glad users will be able to play whole tracks of mine… the fact this play counts as a promo, without royalties, is a big concession. After all, you take money for subscribers… but it’s a compromise I can make for the audience…
But I request that users can play FULL ALBUMS once again, after all we are giving plays to our listeners PLEASE make it so users can stream whole albums!
thanks
Burulsun
1 May, 23:40
“..will SOON be able to again offer tracks in full..”.. umm so when?
j
2 May, 06:43
I just read pretty much every post on this blog. I don’t often do that as many blog comments lists are full of poorly thought out comment. However, this enormous set of responses says it all (nearly… see my comment about spotify below).
If I want to listen to a track on lastfm, share my joy by recommending it to others, tag it, love it, scrobble it or whatever other thing which made lastfm so much more than a place to listen to that lost long track, and then flit around between different previously unheard artists finding new gems to love , share and remember, then why would I want to go to spotify? It’s just not a neat solution. I can’t see the point of tagging or recommending a track clip. That doesn’t impress or enthuse your friends – just pisses them off when they find the link is a link to a clip and then they have to scan the page for a suitable link to a partner site where they can play the whole thing. The whole thing is a retrograde step which just makes no sense to the average punter.
My biggest problem with spotify per se is that there are so many tracks which skip badly. Don’t know why – some are actually recorded skipped, some skip while streaming some days and not others, but the problem is common enough to make it my second choice for finding my listening pleasure.
Now of course spotify will be my first choice coz I don’t see the point of searching in lastfm to have to go elsewhere to listen. I’m not a lastfm subscriber and now I won’t even consider it. There must be others like me, and add that to your band of loyal subscribers who are going to stop and what have you got left? An empty record shop – soon there’ll be a sign on the door saying “Closing Down Sale – everything must go” and then your bit of the Information Super High Street will look like the bit that was once Woolies on many a High Street across the UK. None of this can be good artists royalties – one assumes that if I played a song once a month the artist would get a payment once a month? better than me going out and buying a single in Woolies (or anywhere else for that matter). And what about your advertisers – I actually find myself drawn by some of them and have clicked on the links to go and see what it is all about. Now that will be lost too.
If you are reading this, please read what everyone else has said as there is much eloquent debate shared there. And if you have any influence over LastFM’s future policy and general offering to the public, please read it very carefully; then read it again and make careful notes, and then just assess what you distill from your notes and the truth will stare you in the face like a hungry black bear. THen if you don’t do something pretty sensible soon, it’ll eat you and not even bother to spit out the bones. Sorry if this happens, but it looks that way to me. Ask others – if I’m wrong then I’m very happy, but if I’m right it will just make me sad to see one of the once-best sites fizzle.
laura
2 May, 17:29
i’m relieved to read about the “direct from artist feature” coming. once i uploaded our tracks and heard only 30 seconds, it was frustrating. thank you!
gamine
3 May, 14:25
As independent artists, we are saddened by the lame attempts at portraying a reduction in functionality as progress. Having spent many a tedious session maintaining and upgrading our presence on last.fm, to find the rug suddenly pulled out from under our feet really pisses us off.
First, the possibility of putting full-length albums into a playlist that could be embedded on other sites was summarily withdrawn last year. Then we find out that people can no longer listen to full-length tracks, or see the videos we patiently uploaded.
Don’t you people ever think that compromising your site like this might merit a bit of consultation with your users before blindly hacking away? So a limited functionality will return – this doesn’t hide the fact that you have already shot yourselves in the foot. Maybe a limited number of users will return too (do you seriously think that users will want to surf to God knows how many other pages to listen to a track when a single click on the play button would have sufficed?), but other sites will take up the slack, and last.fm’s importance will decrease rapidly. When you’re over, you’re over – look at Myspace. There’s no coming back.
And as for the royalties? Don’t make me laugh – most of us would earn more working in MacDonalds for three hours a year…
That_Metal_Dude a last.fm user
3 May, 18:25
“Our renewed focus on the features that make Last.fm unique — scrobbling, personalised radio, and being the online home for your music taste –– means we won’t be returning our own on-demand track offering”
Last.GAY
This sucks You Suck
This cite sucks
please some one tell me were i can listen to music because last.fm just wants to be the middle man
All lfm is an app not a cite for good listening and discovering music
lfm was a revolution destroyed by the man
The Man Sucks!!!
Music Advice
3 May, 21:04
Sounds like some good changes you’re making, good to see Last FM going from strength to strength!
Jess
4 May, 04:58
good work so far guys, but i still think the listed tags and the tag command need to be bigger/more prominent- i couldnt find it at all the first time i saw the new track page layout!
Janice
4 May, 05:20
Thanks for the awesome post, I found it very interesting.
janice@funmusicco.com
rosco
4 May, 17:05
this change makes things a bit better,
but before everything was just the right thing.
I’m thinking about the ARP… I mean, all this earthquake and at the end you pay less royalty…
eva
5 May, 15:30
thank you , very interesting.. _
kat
6 May, 06:04
wow. that all sucks. why change last.fm i loved every second of it. to be able to go from page to page and similar artists, then at once you were- able to comment & listen to a song, even download it where applicable!
if this was done for money, why not ask people to make paid account or else it would end in horrible changes to the web-page and everyone would end up leaving it… on their own accord b/c it’s not what we signed up with and because YOU ARE MAKING US GO TO OTHER PAGES while telling us “oh but we are getting so much better now” ~so much so that we need to send you away to other sites. really? REALLY?
RCC18
6 May, 11:08
Hmmm Improvement????
Very “corporate” now and not for me….
You are just another music service now, nothing special… Methinks you have been got at by the big boys….
Have a nice life, whatever is left of it and thanks for the past enjoyment…
dmcal
6 May, 12:42
Why would I go to last.fm, click on a song I like just to be taken to another site so I could listen to it in its entirety when I could just go there in the first place and skip last.fm altogether? I am so disappointed. Sure you can go on about how the personalized radio feature is more popular, but that doesn’t mean you should take away the option of listen to multiple full length tracks by the same artist if you want to do so.
I will not be renewing my subscription.
john
6 May, 22:05
I don’t really have anything new to add other than that i’m disappointed with this turn of events. I’m an obscure amateur songwriter with not many scrobbles or tags or wider media exposure etc. so withdrawing the on demand function largely ends this site’s usefulness to me.
Time for me to start looking for a site that actually supports grass-roots musicians instead of ignoring them.
deeper voice
6 May, 23:07
it would also be nice for independent artists to be able to access & track listeners, notifying people of new releases, etc. the journal or news isn’t good enough, some kind of mailing, user listener list would be nice
Corey Mwamba
7 May, 04:55
You’ve said “soon”. But – when? Is this turnaround just words, or is there an actual time-frame?
michael
7 May, 06:25
Stefan said that there would be details in a couple of days. Two weeks later, there is still no update on this issue. It seems that all the “thank you” comments were a bit to early.
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Felix Miller
8 May, 02:33
Oh I’m really glad all of the awesome Indie bands will be allowed to give their listeners what they want.
seeker5528
8 May, 10:22
If the trade off for getting rid of the majority of full length on demand plays means that youtube videos and other linked to, full length stuff gets scrobbled I guess I can live with that, but it’s not as convenient as going down a list of tracks for an album, seeing ones that have full plays and clicking on one.
And yes, I am one of the users the hardly used that feature, but when you come across something new that you think you might like, it sure was nice.
Previews I never listen to because usually I feel they are too short to get a sense of whether I’m going to like the track much less the artist. If I can hear 3 or 4 complete tracks out of 10-12 I’m much more likely to make the decision to buy an album.
Not making any judgments about it until we see it get more developed, the features I use most are still there working more or less as they did before.
Later, Seeker
rompemonster
8 May, 12:24
Good work guys! I like
Fuckyou
11 May, 16:18
Shouldnt have changed anything. You guys fucking lick balls.
beckettt
11 May, 16:27
another thumb down for this “upgrade”
Elle
12 May, 14:11
I like it! Great job turning the corner and shooting for the sky!
holly75
14 May, 13:31
Who wants to go here, there, and everywhere to listen to music? Not me and it looks like the majority of users don’t want to do that either. I’m really disappointed with these updates.
I’ve been a user for going on 5 years and I’ll never get used to this change EVER.
j_canuck
14 May, 20:28
“…we won’t be returning our own on-demand track offering”.
I have missed the on-demand single track playback so, SO, much since it was removed. I will not be renewing my subscription.
michael
15 May, 08:53
And I will also not be renewing my subscription. This “upgrade” is a huge disappointment.
Laura
16 May, 00:58
Ugh, yeah, this is really disappointing. As someone who owns a small label – and had been directing her fans to this specific site for the full song previews – I definitely feel like I’ve wasted a considerable amount of my time now that I’m going to have to completely start over with another company who will allow them.
Thanks for making it just that much harder for the underdogs.
Quicksand227
16 May, 13:06
Yeah, it is a step in the right direction…I can live with no full-lenght tracks for famous bands, but I want to use last.fm to show people my music in full-lenght and to support independent artist on the site. Good to see you’ll change that soon!
El-Gato-Felix
16 May, 13:34
i do appreciate the latest improvements, and i’m especially looking forward to the announced changes.
>> Our renewed focus on the features that make Last.fm unique — scrobbling, personalised radio, and being the online home for your music taste <<
indeed, this is what makes last.fm unique!
>> we’ll be connecting people to more streaming services in more countries by the end of the year, partners that focus squarely on providing the best on-demand experience possible and scrobbling it. <<
sounds great!!
>> We also have plenty of new music discovery and exploration improvements <<
i’m really looking forward to these improvements! the possibilities of exploring the musical scenery and expanding music taste represent another central feature of last.fm for me!
>> we’re happy to announce that unsigned artists who hold global rights to their music will soon be able to again offer tracks in full to their fans via their track pages <<
also appreciate that!
Jamie
16 May, 20:05
I’m an artist on lastfm (Slideshow Freak) and even though I’m pissed at the removal of the full preview of tracks It’s not really that big of a deal for me as all of my tracks are available to download for FREE (about 60 or so!?) and STILL are! so if anyone wants to hear any song in it’s complete state they’ve only got to download it!
iSkiapod
17 May, 21:54
I have 14 days subscription left. I don’t anticipate any reversal from Last or FM, so don’t anticipate my renewing.
Greta
19 May, 00:54
Still patiently waiting for the promised changes for artists…
Is there an update?
Thanks.
Cyclopseyemusic
19 May, 12:02
Looking to upload a new album in January and even to run a powerplay campaign for one of the songs – IF, this comes to pass:“However, today we’re happy to announce that unsigned artists who hold global rights to their music will soon be able to again offer tracks in full to their fans via their track pages. For the first time, this option will be clearly labeled as “Play direct from artist”, and the plays will scrobble via an improved player.”
Is this going to happen? I think a powerplay campaign for an independent artist is a waste of money if listeners curiously aroused by the powerplay cannot then full preview our other tracks.
I have beene eagerly awaiting this too: “We’ll follow up this post in a couple of days with another one where Matt Knapman will explain a little more about the development process at Last.fm, how we gathered your feedback, and a little about plans for community support as a whole…”
Cyclopseyemusic
19 May, 12:24
That should have been June in my first sentence above, not January.
Greta
19 May, 19:54
@Cyclopseyemusic: yeah, I have been hanging on too for the promised changes.
I remember the 3rd week of May being mentioned.
I have regretfully once again had to start looking around for alternatives to Last FM, as I have made more tracks and uploaded them since the last update and cannot share them with anyone on here, at present.
Paul
19 May, 20:48
I’m a bit confused. I don’t know much about this site but have a band account and a few songs here – now it seems all I can hear is a clip of the songs and the videos I uploaded have been deleted… how exactly is that ‘helping’ the independent artist (or am I missing something)?
ryan negfi
19 May, 22:02
it would be useful if the ‘buy’ links for individual tracks went to the same ‘buy’ links as the album… or if you allowed artists to (sigh) manually edit every track. I do not sell my music on itunes or amazon, i sell it direct.
Greta
21 May, 00:32
Ok… some of my tracks now appear to be fully previewable, while most aren’t. I have checked and their settings are all set to “full”. Why are they not playable in full? And why have the fully-streamable tracks come back only for some of my musical projects, but not for others, despite the settings being all “full”?
Whispering_Wind
21 May, 00:58
Sounds awesome!
Thank you guys!!!
Cheers,
Em.
Adrian22
21 May, 11:15
Hi ~ We’re experiencing the same as Greta – two posts above. Only some of our tracks – for Allison Crowe – are fully streamable. Most aren’t, although all are switched to full. (After selecting full preview choice, saving, and getting the message – changes saved – when going back into each album to check, the tracks have been reverted to non-full stream.)
Is this a tech/support issue, or something that is just going to take a while longer to effect?
cheers, Ad
Tamaro
21 May, 19:38
Thank you! :))
CD001
24 May, 14:55
Oki – I’m glad we’ve got full-length tracks from indie artists on the current “beta” track view … however, unless I’m missing something, there doesn’t appear to be a way to play the full “album” release – so you go into the track to play it in full, back to the album overview, pick the next track and so on… it’s a PITA.
You’ve still got the media player for the radio, why not use it for albums that have been released by the artist? Y’know, like you used to.
Whilst other services like We7 are good – they don’t have the depth of tracks that you’d get on Last FM; compare what’s on Last FM and We7 for say “Feindflug” or “Ayria” – even moreso for indies like “LOSTFREEQ” – and you’ll see what Last FM is really good at, finding NEW stuff, irrespective of massive popularity.
Clyde Machine
26 May, 17:41
Thanks for bringing those back – as an independent artist, I was missing those!
-a grateful Clyde Machine
Northcape
26 May, 22:05
Thank you for listening to feedback and re-allowing track streaming! last.fm almost lost the most important thing that made it different from other websites – at least for me as both an artist as a listener (equally)- the fact that it is a site where you can easily hear new independent music. It’s the combination of this with all the other features that has made last.fm so interesting in the past. Great decision.
Adrian22
27 May, 05:34
Full length previews are not working on the song tracks of our albums for artist Allison Crowe:
1) http://musicmanager.last.fm/manage/album?album=1417567 – Lisa’s Song + 6 Songs
2) Secrets – http://musicmanager.last.fm/manage/album?album=1417565
3) http://musicmanager.last.fm/manage/album?album=1417566 – Tidings
4) http://musicmanager.last.fm/manage/album?album=1992492 – Live at Wood Hall
5) http://musicmanager.last.fm/manage/album?album=3220170 – This Little Bird
6) http://musicmanager.last.fm/manage/album?album=3787565 – Little Light
7) http://musicmanager.last.fm/manage/album?album=1421124 – Crowe Covers: Live + Rare
8) http://musicmanager.last.fm/manage/album?album=209929569 – Spiral
No matter what is done, to try and save as full-length previews, it does not work.
Here are the four OEs and browser combinations tried without success:
1) Vista w. IE
2) Vista w. Firefox
3) XP w IE
4) XP Firefox
Please help!
thanks, Ad
Joe Jack Wagner
28 May, 04:43
How about scrobbling on Bandcamp.com ?
Neverever Records
1 June, 23:12
I take back all of my harsh wording and not very constructive criticism towards you regarding independent artists here.
Thank you for reversing the change. We’re back on and back to promoting our artists on last.fm — which comes in the nick of time seeing that Lala’s excellent service has been co-opted by the evil gatekeepers at apple. Anyway, we really appreciate you upholding your support for the indies. Rock on.
BFF and Neverever
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