I can't play music but music has been a kind of important in my life. I listen to music everyday, mostly because I just want to, but during crucial times in facing ups and downs in live music makes me feeling much better. When I feel so bad, I prefer listening to alternative rock songs which nobody-doesn't-really-know-what-is-the-actual-meaning-of-the-song-unless-the-composer-itself. Usually after I got things off my chest I would listen to some songs that make me calm, so when the bad thing strikes again I will be ready. But it depends on my mood tough, still. 

The funny thing is when something bad happen and during that time I listen to a particular song, that problem sticks with the song forever. Even after years, when Arctic Monkeys' Old Yellow Brick get accidentally played in my library I still remember how listening to that song helped me to move on back then, even the song isn't about moving on at all. Apart from the song actual meaning which I never really know, nobody knows except Alex Turner, the lyric which says "Old yellow brick, love's a risk" and another part about "blinded by nostalgia" and "revel in nostalgia" made me think a lot. Remembering good times back then can make us feeling happy but sad at the same time. But this song reminds me not to revel and be blinded by nostalgia because future awaits us and that our life must go on.

Not only about facing the hard times, music can also bring happiness in our life. At least, that's in my life. Some songs can simply put a smile in my face, because of the moment told. Or simply I am happy when I find a really good song, and the happy feeling when I find that my friends shares the same music interest as me is good but unfortunately it rarely happens. I tends listening to songs most people don't listen to because I don't want to. But because I simply likes music what people rarely likes. 

Back then in high school I still listen to "normal" pop song, like Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, or you can say billboard-based, and I guess I am the only one who like Arctic Monkeys and listen to it in my class. But when I went to university I was so happy to find that some people are just like me. Listen to Arctic Monkeys and a lot indie and old songs because simply we think they are good. I even believe in some people taste of music because I know that they share the same interest as me. 

Lately after I discovered Blur, Kings of Convenience, The Cure, and more, I wanted to discovered more and more music. It's addictive for me knowing the band I haven't heard or the band I ever heard but don't know the songs, created songs that suits me well. Usually I use youtube to discover music because the site gives you recommendations. But mostly it gets tiring because it's like gambling to click an audio-video to play but you never know most people reactions about the song whether it's good or bad. Mostly I used wikipedia to help me, because they have a brief introduction about the band, and what's the band hits. But still I find this uncomfortable and ineffective.

But thanks God, internet nowadays has everything. I finally sign in to LAST.FM which is an internet based music recommendation service. I think it is one of the most genius thing internet has. 

After you sign up for last.fm user, you have to download the last.fm scrobbler application based on the kind of music player you use and install it to your computer or phone, etc. For me, I use iTunes for listening to music, and I also has last.fm Scrobbler in my phone. After that, the last.fm scrobbler will detect all the songs you have in your library and how many times you had them played. As long as the application running, even if your computer or phone is not connected to the internet they still detect which track you play and how many, later when the device is connected to the internet they will store the information into your last.fm profile.

After they detect artists from your music library they will recommend you new artist based on artist you have in your library. The recommendation varies every time you refresh the page, so many artist to listen. 

Last.fm also has every artist basic information on it, and the most useful thing is they list every band tracks with the number of listeners. Therefore, you will get to know the band hit songs and usually the higher number of listeners a song has, the more appealing it is to your ear. This is very useful for me because I used to open wikipedia along with youtube to get to know about the new artist I was exploring and I rarely get new music that I like. 

For example this is a last.fm artist page for JB, but not Justin Bieber; Jake Bugg. Eheheh

There are a lot of things to explore in last.fm. I can't explain this all in this post because it will take too long. The funny thing is just like another social media, last.fm allows you to make a friend. If it's Facebook, the connection between you and new people is based on how many mutual friends you both have, in last.fm it is about musical compatibility.

I have known last.fm for about two years before I started myself. It was bothering me because I knew that I had to download an application and install it. But I regretted this later, because since I signed up for last.fm this has been one of the things I missed the most in the internet.