Battleangel | Personal

On the detrimental effects of using Last.fm. Yes really. So I’m a bit of a neat freak and it shows when tagging mp3s and such. The tagging syndrome is one that has progressed over the years and sort of exploded with the introduction of Last.fm. Proper tagging is obviously the cornerstone of the Last.fm / Audioscrobbler experience and without it the entire concept is defunct. Like this morning I was browsing the small but sturdy collection of classical music that I have on disk. Classical music is notoriously difficult to tag for various reasons. Not only because variations are legio but also because the music is always played by “cover artists” as it were. So what will it be? Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or the Berlin Symphony Orchestra? Yoshikazu Mera or Edvard Grieg? It’s enough to drive anyone insane. Before, I would just cringe or sigh and mostly look the other way when I found a faulty tag on a track. Now, I’m all over the pause button and scramble for Tag&Rename before the track can be injected into the Last.fm database. Because unfortunately it is no longer possible to delete tracks from the service (the new editor will allow for 14 days of respite but the whole editor thing is unavailable currently). Talk about compulsive behavior. But I fear that it was inevitable when letting people loose on a service like Last.fm. The slightly anal approach by many users to the track counter and charts in times of service unavailability only confirm this.