Best of 2011 is a reflection of the year in music, highlighting the most popular and hottest new artists all based on the tracks you’ve been scrobbling.
This year’s ‘Top Artists’ chart was compiled by looking at scrobbles for albums released between 1st January and 31st December 2011. As in previous years, we aren’t counting live albums, greatest hits collections, EP’s and singles. You might not be all that surprised when you see who’s sat at number one, but dig a little deeper using our lovely new Country and Tag filtering options to find the No. 1 which suits you!
Another new feature for 2011 we’re really excited about is our ‘Top New Discoveries’ chart. This was compiled by looking at the number of listeners for artists who had their first scrobble between 1st December 2010 and 31st December 2011. Discovering new music is core to the Last.fm experience; so we wanted to highlight the artists who caught your attention this year and who you should keep an eye on during 2012. Again, use the filtering options to personalise your view.
Additionally, we took a look at the Year In Music to see what our data had to say about 2011. We hope you’re as fascinated as we were by the impact of music news on your scrobbles.
For developers, we have provided the chart data as TSV and XML files. Download and start hacking, we’d love to hear what you come up with.
Finally, as a little easter egg, we’ve created a commemorative poster of this year’s New Discoveries chart. The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that it’s slightly different to what you see online; we made this before taking all of December’s data into account. You can download the poster here.
Comments
DynamiteKyle
12 January, 13:12
That poster is super clever.
fcojavierlara
12 January, 13:47
thanks for that present its nice!!!!!!
Daryl
12 January, 14:17
I liked the “ARTIST LISTENING TREND” from last year, where it compared my listening habits to those of the community. Does that exist again this year?
Alessandro
12 January, 17:08
Nice, although a chart listing albums instead of artists – like the one from last year – would have been much better for music discovery.
Since you’ve started pushing out these yearly charts I’ve always tried to listen to all the listed albums: a time-consuming but incredibly rewarding task.
I’ve discovered so many little gems this way, it’s a bit sad to think I won’t be able to do it this time ;)
Sarah
12 January, 18:49
I know it’s not exactly what you were after, but the albums are listed in the data download files on this page: http://www.last.fm/bestof/2011/about. The Top Discoveries chart wasn’t derived from albums, so this only applies to the Top Artists chart.
edrdo
12 January, 22:28
Hello, the style of this chart image has obviously been inspired by the cover “Unknown Pleasures”, the debut album by Joy Division back in 1979. Nice idea, but an acknowledgement or a small historical mention in this post would also be nice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_Pleasures
Alessandro
13 January, 00:05
Sarah, thanks for pointing that out. I’ve created a Spotify playlist with the first 100 albums in case someone else is interested (and wants to avoid some mindless tedious copy/paste work).
Too bad I couldn’t find them all. For the record, Spotify is missing:
Adele » 21
Coldplay » Milo Xyloto
deadmau5 » Deadmau5
Cascada » Original me
Red Hot Chili Peppers » I’m With You
DEV » The Night The Sun Came Up
The Weeknd » Thursday
Peter Gabriel » New Blood
Mohombi » Movemeant
The Black Keys » El Camino
Cali Swag District » The Kickback
Alexandra Stan » Saxobeats
In Flames » Sounds of a Playground Fading
Selah Sue » Selah Sue
Thompson Square » Thompson Square
tristan
14 January, 13:46
I liked the “ARTIST LISTENING TREND” from last year, where it compared my listening habits to those of the community. Does that exist again this year? [2]
Job Martins
19 January, 12:34
Very cool. Thanks for the listing.
Lanooz
30 January, 22:47
Thanks for the poster and everything else! It’s really great
Comments are closed for this entry.