Comment by xrd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by xrd | Hacker News Reader

When I read the negative take on "it's always somebody else selecting the music for you" I really recoiled. My favorite way to listen to music today is BECAUSE there is someone choosing it for me. I love the human stories behind the music, and it is totally missing with algorithmic stuff. I love Gilles Peterson, and Derek Smith on KMHD, for example, exactly because they are terrific and interesting people and they bring that humanity with their choice of tracks. When they interview people it is so much more interesting as a companion to the music.

My favorite thing about Napster and LimeWire was when you could find a song, and then BROWSE the hard drive of the person hosting that song. It was so interesting to find house music and be digging through the tastes of someone in London. And, then chatting with them, and discovering the live scenes, the people behind the music, etc. I loved that and nothing has ever replaced it.

Having said all this, I am interested in playing with "scrobbling." Anyone have any advice on how to get started? Do you need a music library? Is there a way to import your playlists from YouTube music? I'm not a spotify person.

> My favorite thing about Napster and LimeWire was when you could find a song, and then BROWSE the hard drive of the person hosting that song.

Soulseek lets you do this and is still going

Soulseek is still going?

I discovered so many artists, international variations of albums, live sessions and bootlegs from that app, it changed my relationship with music.

I have to go back and check it out.

There's even a FOSS client now https://github.com/nicotine-plus/nicotine-plus

Nicotine+ has existed for at least 15 years. I'm pretty sure it was open source all this time.

while Soulseek has existed for 24 years, I mention it in case GP's use didn't overlap.

Soulseek is definitely still going, and absolutely still captures that feeling GP is talking about :)

Beyond that, and practically speaking, I find it the easiest way to find large, nicely organized discographies. And some not so nicely organized.

> When I read the negative take on "it's always somebody else selecting the music for you" I really recoiled.

Someone clearly didn't listen to John Peel and Andy Kershaw in their youth.

(also, IN MY DAY, it was generally somebody else selecting the music for you - radio DJs/programmers, TV music shows, availability of things in shops, being able to actually get to the damn shops, etc. None of this choose your own adventure streaming or digital music malarkey.)

If you use streaming you can link it to lastfm or Listenbrainz(open source alternative). It will automagically scrobble your listening over.

Otherwise you need to find a music player that supports it or has a plugin to add the functionality. I use tauron for scrobbling my local listening.

i used to use last.fm with winamp and the like. that needed scrobbling plugins. nowadays, i use it with spotify, and it's pretty simple: (1) make an account on last.fm. (2) go into spotify settings → social → connected apps, and add it in.

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