For someone like me, a radio station that basis the playlist on chart single sales
isn't really appropriate to my listening style; 25 year old men tend to buy albums, not singles, and so our musical tastes are very rarely reflected in the charts. Because last.fm works off a different model, you will often hear tracks you've never heard before and will be introduced to music that is genuinely new to you rather than another rehash of 'it's raining men' by the Weathergirls. There are two ways to epxerience Last Fm, either head to www.last.fm and stream it directly from the website or download the free standalone player. If you're serious about your music then the player does offer a number of advantages over the website such as the ability to create and store a continually developing profile. Using a profile will allow more information to be collected about the type of music that you like resulting in a more accurate selection of the kind of music you'll enjoy whilst avoiding that which doesn't suit your taste. When listening to a song you will also be given some additional information regarding the artist and their particular style of music should you decide that you want to hear more of them. If there's a song on that you like the sound of then hit the 'love' icon and the site will give you more songs like that in tyhe future. Likewise, if you don't like a particular track then hit 'ban'. If only I could have done that with Umbrella at the start of the summer....