Music Roundup and Rant

My iPhone scrobbles differently each time I plug it into my PC laptop. I don't know why sometimes it scrobbles right away, and why sometimes it takes 1/2 hour before the window pops up -- startling me because I had completely forgotten about it.

If you want to know how to scrobble your iPhone played songs to Last.Fm, check out this how-to article from the Apple Bar "Last.fm: 12 Ways to Scrobble" using the official scrobbler program that sits in your taskbar. Or, here's Last.fm's Windows client download (remember to pick the option to scrobble from iPod/iPhone under the settings). I'm still waiting for the day when the iPhone or iTunes will do this automatically tho, which doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. Drag. Bummer. Shucks. Get your act together guys!

I really am not a big fan of iTunes. I only started using it two years ago when I realized it was kind of the only easy way to put music onto my iPhone. I definitely don't delve into iTunes Store as much as I could either--I find it overwhelming due to the quantity, but easy to search. Gimme torrent finder any day! I only used the iTunes store successfully to rent the movie "9" with a gift card I got for Christmas. That was fun.

I listen to music via the following methods with most popular first:

1. the car radio (first most used) 
2. iPhone linked to car stereo system (second most used) - when the radio gets too redundant--as it often tends to do. 
3. YouTube - usually at work or when someone tells me to try a band or song out, tho lately I've been trying to remember to do this on...
4. Last.Fm - I started using this about three years ago at a friend's suggestion, tho I had been using Pandora successfuly and was happy with the close matches it provided for selected artists and songs. Something I wish Last.fm did better. 
5. iTunes - only occasionally on the weekends.

I was updating my iPhone playlists today and my scrobble window came up. I decided to check out my statistics page on Last.fm and realized that I completely agree with it, it's a great representation of what I listen to. It helps that it keeps track of what I play on my iPhone.

On the other hand...my iTunes...the top 25 most heard songs aren't exactly 100% representative. It may be that it doesn't keep track of the songs I play on my iPhone...or my not using iTunes often enough to represent well.

All my iTunes Songs: 2,530

Top 25 Most Listened on iTunes

Last.fm Top Artists: DM, Ennio Morricone, Garbage, Nickelback, Lily Allen

Top Tracks: Kaiser Chiefs Never Miss a Beat, Depeche Mode Wrong,  Does It Offend You Yeah? We Are Rockstars, Goose Bring It On, Coldplay Clocks

No surprise to me that the top songs on Last.Fm are my Carz playlist songs, since I usually...listen to my iPhone in the car. I love the songs that iTunes categorizes as my top 25 most heard, and completely agree, but my Last.fm list best represents my likes. I think it comes down to use, because I use Last.Fm more than iTunes due to the scrobbling on the iPhone and just in general I guess. I wish my iTunes would keep track of the songs I play on my iPhone -- wouldn't it make sense?

What are your favorite players or scrobblers?