The Euphoria of Scrobbling 30,000 Songs on last.fm

I hit a social media milestone this weekend: I surpassed 30,000 scrobbles on the music service last.fm. It is a stunning number considering I have only been alive for 12,750 days and have only been a member of last.fm for 618. Yes, for those that just did the arithmetic that is 50 songs a day. Is this even possible?

waiting for the beat, originally uploaded by clickykbd.

Yes, it is. I listen to music pretty much all day and every single song that gets played over my iPhone or through my laptop gets sent to last.fm (scrobbled) so their database can make a note of it. Doing some back-of-the-matchbook calculation, this would equate to 80 days of around-the-clock listening, meaning that I have been sharing my headphones with last.fm since mid-August.

This milestone means absolutely nothing in the offline world- who actually counts how many songs they devour over the course of one afternoon? The only comparable experience from the physical world is the irrational euphoria when the odometer in your vehicle becomes its own multiple of 10,000. I remember hitting the 70,000 mile marker in my Volkswagen. I hushed the other passengers for that last mile and then we celebrated at that wonderful moment and then… I just drove another mile down a familiar road just like I had the previous 70,000.

By posting to last.fm, I am letting them do the math, tabulating my favourite artists and songs and, of course, recommending music that is not in my library that I just may like enough to give it a spin. And if marketing and listening habits align properly, I will be motivated to purchase a track. I haven’t bought a single song yet but I do know that my most played song is Goldfrapp’s Happiness.  (Thanks to ASCAP, I had to go to Vimeo in order to stream this vid- YouTube will not allow it).

Goldfrapp – Happiness from Mute Records on Vimeo.

Friday afternoon I baked Rosewater Cupcakes for a dinner party in the evening. Having braced for the 30,000 event all week, I had high anticipation as I set my laptop up near the toaster as I prepared the kitchen for some baking. There were 10 songs left to go and it would be in the kitchen, preparing vegan cupcakes, where the all important 30,000th track would be spun. To ensure that there was no bias, I put my iTunes on random but filtered only those songs that I had listened to more than 10 times since I didn’t want any old crap song to spoil the party. At Fascination Street, I was in the process of mixing the wet ingredients. By the time the barnstorming Jackson was over, the rose water had been mixed in and the dry ingredients were being measured by the cup and the handful. When I was done mixing and getting ready to put the paper cups into the muffin tray, I started to get nervous. Just a few songs away and one of my all-time favourite songs was playing: Skip Tracer by Sonic Youth. Maybe last.fm had lost count. I verified- nope, I was still one short. I threw the cupcakes in the oven and the phone rang. I debated answering it- who would be so inconsiderate to call at such a pivotal moment? Pause.

Play. A Wilco song led me into the breathless moment, serving as a comforting farewell to the current era: Wilco loves you baby. And then… it happened. The song came, and then it went. I was soon humming along to Ike & Tina as I washed dishes, as if nothing had even happened.

Without last.fm, there would have been zero anticipation, just the usual surprise of what comes next while listening to a random mix. But, for one afternoon, last.fm gave me an irrational thrill, like counting down song-by-song before ringing in a New Year. It was exciting, it was my personal milestone, and I wanted to tell everyone but who really cares? I didn’t put a bumper sticker on my car’s boot when it reached the 70,000 mile mark.

John ended up asking me the next day: so which song was it? The song was Space Moth by Stereolab, the kick-off song to their 2001 album Sound-Dust. It’s a good song- but it is no more special today than it was yesterday.

The estimated date for #40,000 is April/May and, while I will probably have the same irrational anticipation, it will be a non-event that just comes and goes, with only last.fm and myself being the wiser.

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