I think it's no secret that I love France, that I would kill to live in Paris, that I adore the French language (although unfortunately I don't speak it too fluent because I'm too lazy) - and that I have a - for me - quite untypical crush on so many French artists. I wouldn't call it "obsession", but maybe it's nearly something like that, who knows. So as I listened to a lot of what is generally called chansons francaises (oh-how I hate it that last.fm won't accept the cedilla...) I thought of writing a journal entry for quite some time now, but I wasn't sure which form I should use. I think I will just present (as in "list") those artists I like the most, accompanied by their album I think is the best so far, the one I think is the most representative - or just the only one I know.

In addition to this journal entry I created a playlist to make all of those wonderful singers easily accessable (for the subscribers, of course) without having to use a radio station, especially because I of course only chosed two or three songs I think are good to show the variety of each of the people I talk about as well as of the whole nouvelle scene francaise (oh-how I hate it that last.fm won't accept the accent - and the cedilla...).



I just love Bénabar! Bruno Nicolini makes what I consider to be quite typical "chansons modernes", sung with a wonderful voice and interpreted with a lot of gorgeous humour. His third album Les risques du métier was a big success and made him quite famous, but with Reprise des négociations he sings himself like a piercing bolt of amor right through my heart.
Bruxelles and Le méchant de James Bond are two of my absolute favourites of his songs, the first one being one of the VERY FEW that make me want to dance and jump on my bed, the second one just being beautiful.



For me personally Jeanne Cherhal was always the artist I had to think of immediately when I read or heard about the term "nouvelle scène française". Her songs are fresh, very modern, a little bit playful, but without being childish although she seems to tend to don't take herself too serious.
Unfortunately and sadly the only available song is La Valse Des Etiquettes. I really would like to show you the charme of "Canicule" and "Rondes larmes", both from her latest album L'Eau...



Miossec, although known to me by name for a few years now, is a quite new discovery for me musically, because I never heard a song by him (or at least I can't remember) until I got his compilation album "- BREST OF - (Tout ça pour ça)" (named after his town of birth) at the end of last year. I'm already in love, and although I know most of his albums now I still recommend his "Best of" as it shows perfectly the variety of his styles.
Christophe Miossec too is not really available at last.fm yet, and the only song streamable is Chanson pour Nathalie. I would say, though, that you should listen to the new versions of "La fidélité" and "Que devient ton poing quand tu tends les doigts", both of which are just... great!



Joseph d'Anvers, who released two album so far, if I'm not informed badly, caught me totally off guard with his song "Entre Mes Mains" from his second release "Les Jours Sauvages". His music has a lot of "Rock'n'Roll" to it, but not too much, as that would surely make me abhor it, and also the slightly "jazzy" tunes he uses sometimes really add something more intimate to his pop-rock style.
So far only his debut Les choses en face is streamable, from which I recommend Comme un souffle and Nos jours heureux.



Claire Diterzi's third album Tableau de Chasse was somewhat of a revelation for me. Her voice is phanatastic, her modern, mature, sometimes even avantgardish compositions are often so experimental without loosing their popsong-like structure that I seriously was a bit spechless at first listening.
I remember that L'odalisque reminded me a bit of Le Mystère des voix Bulgares... The second song I force you to listen to is the absolutely gorgeous La vieille chanteuse!



Vincent Delerm, son of the famous French author Philippe Delerm (who you might probably know for his work "La Première gorgée de bière et autres plaisirs minuscules", "The Small Pleasures of Life" in English), gained a lot of positive critics for his self-titled debut album Vincent Delerm, which I think is still his best one, although many people seem to tend to prefer his third release Les Piqûres D'Araignée (which is horribly tagged by the way...). Delerm writes beautiful humoristical and sometimes cynical songs he usually interpretes alone with his voice and a minimum of instrumentation besides the piano.
I absolutely recommend "Fanny Ardant et moi" and "Le monologue shakespearien" (his most popular song is "Tes parents" though), but, sadly enough, there are none of his songs available.



Pauline Croze is always the second female artist after Jeanne Cherhal I associate with the "nouvelle scène française". The first time I heard of her was when I watched a short documentation about Miossec on the Franco-German TV network "Arte" where the fact was mentionned that she was an opening act for him.
Her eponymous debut album Pauline Croze, that came out in 2005, features the two beautiful songs Larmes and Dans la chaleur des nuits de pleine lune.



Oh my god how I just adore Arman Méliès! Not only does he look heartbreakingly beautiful on the pictures for his latest release Casino, but this album itself is nothing less than a pure gem of a record. I really liked his last release Les Tortures Volontaires, but Casino just left me ruined. I don't know what he made with his voice between those two records, but whatever it was it had an astonishing effect. The arrangements for his new songs are absolutely phantastic, that being said: those are melancholic folk-pop-chansons of the highest order, and I can't recommend it enough!
His latest releases aren't streamable - however, you should listen to "Le Soupir du Monde" and the title song "Casino" anyway - so I dare you to give this unbelievably talented artist a try by listening to Encore Une Fois and La Conjuration des Phalènes!



I think now it's time to talk a little about Françoise Hardy, the QUEEN. First I thought about don't mention her at all as I surely cannot say something new and as she is already known to most of you anyway, but as I have to realise quite often that so many people don't know her latest works and only listen to the songs from her Yé-Yé-period I believe that this could be a good place to recomend what I consider to be her very best works to date: Tant de Belles Choses and, her latest one, (Parenthèses...). Don't get me wrong, I love nearly all of her songs, and many of them have their own little place close to my heart, but, as difficult it may be to compare her early and her later compositions, I believe that these two albums simply are near to what one would call perfect.

Of course the messages she transports with her albums are always quite simpel, but never profane or banal - but I have to admit that this may just be the case for me because they are presented in French... From the 2004 record I recommend the wonderful Soir de gala and the title song Tant De Belles Choses., the main refrain line of which is just too beautiful to be Kitsch: "L'amour est plus fort que la mort."

Her latest album (Parenthèses...), released in 2006, features twelve songs (some being wellknown, some being rarities), interpreted as duos with quite an impressive selection of singers and musicians: Alain Souchon, Françoise's husband Jacques Dutronc, their son Thomas Dutronc, Benjamin Biolay (the last two of which I have yet to write about), Rodolphe Burger, Henry Salvador, Julio Iglesias, even Alain Delon - and the wonderful classical pianoplayer Hélène Grimaud, who accompanies Françoise on the insanely pretty La valse des regrets.



Keren Meloul, who makes music as Rose, released her self-tiled debut album Rose in 2006, and I wish I could have been able to listen to her earlier - I discovered her music, which I embraced very deeply, somewhen in the beginning of this year.
She writes pretty, light, soft and gentle folkish chansons with mature, poetic and intimate lyrics, like Saisons and sombre con, which are my absolute favourites.



Another artist who is already very precious to me is Daphné. I was a bit unsure what to think about her when I listened to her debut L'émeraude, as it is a little bit too experimental "pseudo-trip-hop'ish" for my liking, but I was intrigued from the first time by her voice. When her second album Carmin came out in 2007 and I heard the first song (I think it was Les phénix) I was so very happy that I haven't "dismissed" her. That whole album is just pretty, but the most pretty song of all is Le Petit Navire! Really, you will LOVE it! The second one I chosed is L'Homme Piano.



Although Dominique Ané, who releases his music as Dominique A, is a very influential musician who has worked with lots of different singers, musicians and producers he is probably best known for his collaborations with Yann Tiersen for Monochrome, Les bras de mer (from the album Le phare) and Bagatelle (from L'absente). He has a very varied style and wrote less "classical" chansons but minimalist rock songs in the beginnin of his career, but turned to a more gentle form later.
The album which I like the most at the moment is Tout sera comme avant, which features the beautiful Elle Parle À Des Gens Qui Ne Sont Pas Là and Bowling.



For a long time I wasn't really interested in discovering Keren Ann, I have to admit, although I knew her before since 2000, when she released her solo debut. It's not too surprising though that I gave her a try when I realised that she worked together with Benjamin Biolay, the arrangements of which for her records gave him the possibility to finally earn a contract himself. The second album La Disparition is the one that made me fall in love with her music because of her soft, fragile and caressing voice, singing over beautifully gentle melodies. Besides, it's an album on which you hardly find songs that are sung in English.
Surannée and Les Rivieres de Janvier are the two songs I like the most, especially the first one (the second one should actually be "Les rivières de janvier", so I apologize for forcing you to listen to an incorrectly tagged song).



So as I already wrote about Benjamin Biolay two times I should mention his gorgeous double-CD album Négatif now. At first I thought that I have to chose his debut Rose Kennedy, which is really beautiful (especially Les Cerfs Volants and Les joggers sur la plage), but it actually were songs like Little Darlin' and Glory Hole that made him so precious for me. His dark, melancholic voice and his phantastic arrangements, the way he uses strings and discrete brass instruments in some songs are just an incredibly pretty mixture.



Daniel Darc, the former singer of the New Wave band Taxi Girl released his beautiful album Crèvecœur in 2004. Most of the people seem to enjoy this years album Amours Suprêmes (the title is a reference to A Love Supreme by John Coltrane) more, but I still prefer the gentle, slightly melancholic, soft, romantic songs on Crèvecœur.
I suggest you listen to Rouge rose and Je me souviens, je me rappelle.



I love Emily Loizeau! I was presented with a special edition of her brilliant debut album L'autre Bout Du Monde out of the blue the year it came out, and adored her ever since. I higly recommend "Jasseron", her duett with Franck Monnet, and "Comment dire", but as the only songs available are the title song L'autre bout du monde and Je suis jalouse I will put those two in the list - and I can live with that quite well, as both pieces are wonderful compositions and beautifully sung - simply great!



Olivia Ruiz released her debut album J'aime pas l'amour in 2003 after she was featured in the French TV show "Star Academy". Though she released her last album Chocolat Show, a concert recording, last year it is still her second one, La Femme Chocolat, which is considered her best, and I can't disagree. It features the gorgeous Non-Dits, a duett with Christian Olivier, as well as the even more gorgeous title trackLa Femme Chocolat, both of which were also singles.



So I have to admit that I listen to Calogero sometimes. I say "admit" because I would have never guessed that I could ever like something of that type of music he makes, as it is just pop, to put it simple, and I usually abhor modern popmusic. But his second, self-titled album Calogero is really nice, especially in situations that are strenuous and you want to force an easening effect. The hit-single En apesanteur and Prouver l'amour are the two songs I like the most from that album, although Prendre racine, another single, is beautiful too.



I really can't understand why Françoiz Breut is nearly unknown in any other country than France. Formerly known as Françoiz Brrr, she met Dominique A somewhen in the beginning of the 90s, who helped her starting a career as a singer. Her self-titled album Françoiz Breut was released in 1997, and the secon one, the phantastic Vingt à trente mille jours, three years later. Her songs are often a little bit experimental, with somber and melancholic melodies, combined with her wonderfully pretty voice. Both her debut and her second album feature the unbelievably, insanely, gorgeously beautiful Si tu disais, and you are really fortunate because it is streamable on last.fm. I promise you will love that song! The only other song is La Rue ne te reprendra pas, what makes me a bit sad because I would love to show you "Silhouette minuscule"...



Bertrand Betsch's music is just perfect for activities like cleaning the apartment, washing the dishes, watering the plants, or dancing through the rooms. In 2005 he released his album Pas de bras, pas de chocolat, a nicely easening record full of fresh pop-chansons like the title song, but I decided to recommend Pas de bras (disco version), because it is just even more happy; the second song I chosed is L'ancienne peau



Constance Verluca is one of my latest discoveries. Her last years debut album Adieu Pony features such a wonderful mixture of songs and sounds so very French that I felt in love immediately. Of course it is my own subjective notion of the cliche of what does sound "French" that made me love it, but hey, at least I do, right?
I really would like to put "Judas" and "C'est Faux" into my playlist, but sadly Constance isn't streamable yet.



Thomas Fersen released his first album le bal des oiseaux in 1993 which gave him success over night and let him earn the title "Révélation masculine" in '94. Since then he released six other albums, a triple live album, a best-of and a DVD, changing his musical style from one album to the next, playing rock and folk-rock as well as blues and somewhat jazzy chansons. At the moment my favourite of his works is his 2005 release Le Pavillon Des Fous, from which I would recommend "Hyacinthe" and "La Chapelle de la Joie", but he is one of those artists who are not available here.



Another one of my more newer discoveries is Renan Luce, a nice young singer who released his first album Repenti two years ago in 2006. The two songs I recommend are Monsieur Marcel and La Lettre, which is his most favourite song so far together with Les Voisines.



I think the best way to label the music by La Grande Sophie as pop-rock, or maybe rock-pop (is there a difference actually? Maybe rock with pop elements and pop with rock elements, or the like...). Her debut "La Grande Sophie s’agrandit" came out in 1997, but she first became really famous with her second record Le Porte-bonheur in 2001. The one album I like the most though is her fourth one, La Suite..., that was released in 2005. It's a nice listening experience for situation when, for example, Bertrand Betsch is too "poppy" for me and Constance Verluca or Rose too "folky". I don't listent to Sophie too often though, as I'm not often in the mood for light-rock-music like hers (of course that does surely not mean that she has not made pure popsongs)... Anyway, I say you should listen to "Psy psychanalyste", but this song is so badly tagged that it hurts my eyes, so I chosed La Suite, le Milieu, la Fin and Les Bonnes Résolutions for you.



And here we have Thomas Dutronc, the son of Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc. He released one album so far, Comme Un Manouche Sans Guitare, in 2007, and the whole record is full of happy, sunny, gypsy-folky-jazzy-whatever songs, the most beautiful one being J'aime plus Paris and Solitaires, a duett with Marie Modiano.



Adrienne Pauly, who exclusively acted in films for about eight years until she discovered her love for the piano released her eponymous first album Adrienne Pauly in 2006 and earned two nominations for the "Victoires de la Musique" for "Artist -" and "Album Discovery of the Year". Her album is a nice light French-rock work with wonderful songs like "Pourqoi" and "L'amour avec un con". But unfortunately we have here again an artist who is nearly unavailable - with the exception being the song J'veux Un Mec (Radio Mix).



Marie Laforêt definetely is my PRINCESS, considering Françoise Hardy the QUEEN. She played in 39 movies, the last role in this years "Les Bureaux de Dieu", and she released so many records, albums, compilations, best-ofs etc (at least more than 30, I think), and sung so many songs, that it is really difficult to decide which work to chose. I think that Les vendanges de l'amour is perfect though. Of course it is as difficult to decide which song could possibly the most representative, but as I donÄ't think that I'm in the position to judge this I just chosed two of her chansons which I believe are simply pretty: the song of the same name as the album, Les vendanges de l'amour, and A demain my darling.



I think the name Alain Bashung is known to most of the people who are at least slightly interested in the - let's call it "somewhat pseudo-intellectual" - European musical culture. He released 13 albums, three live CDs and a compilation since his debut in 1977 and earned quite a lot "Victoires de la Musique" - three in 1999 for his album Fantaisie militaire and one additional afterwards in 2005 for having composed the best album of the last 20 years.
Although the two songs that are considered the best ones from this album are La nuit je mens and Aucun Express (I think) I chosed Au pavillon des lauriers and Sommes-nous instead, simply because I like them the most.



This shall be enough for now, this whole journal entry is already way too long. But as I really want to write something about all the other French artists I have in mind, wonderful people like Henri Salvador, Clarika, Cali, Alain Souchon, Arthur H, Véronique Sanson and so many others, most of which I really love, I surely will write another entry soon.

EDIT --- Good news, my paper got graded 15 out of 20!

Hello,


This is the follow up journal to my May call-out to fill in a survey about Last.fm aimed to support a research I was conducting.
First of all I would like to thank everyone again for your massive support in filling out the survey!
The goal of this study was to find out whether Last.fm indeed has its influence on people's musical tastes. By splitting the survey into two main parts (intensity of use and influence on musical taste) and then determining whether a correlation exists between these two variables, I hoped to be able to answer that question.

As promised, here are some of the results.


1. The Sample
Considering the skewedness of my selection procedures, a sample of about one thousand respondents with varied socio-demographic profiles was the target. This figure has been widely reached, since none less than 1,574 people participated to the research by filling in the survey. Among them, 1,423 people made it to the end and filled in all essential questions. This totals a percentage of over 90%, which is quite high.
Now, what does the sample look like?

1.1 Year of Birth
The average responder was born in April 1986, which means he or she was about 22 years of age at the time of the research. The median year of birth is 1988 and the mode (the most frequent answer) is 1989. The oldest responder was born in 1947, while the youngest had his or her first encounter with this world in the year 1996.
Here's a graphical representation:




1.2 Sex
Among the 1,423 selected responders, 1,032 (72.5%) are male and 391 (27.5%) are female, as pictured below.




1.3 Nationality
The sample contains a total of 73 different nationalities, among which the American (15.3%) and Belgian (14.5%) are best represented. Next up are the UK (10.3%), Germany (8.6%), Poland (6.1%), the Netherlands (4.4%), Australia (4.1%), Finland (4.0%), Canada (3.2%) and Sweden (2.9%).
The unproportionally large number of Belgian responders is a clear indicator of some skewedness in my research. The fact that I am Belgian myself, clearly had its influence.


2. Results
Let's have a look at the final results of the study. Firstly, does Last.fm have an influence on people's musical preferences?

2.1 The Answer
First up is determining the homogeneity of the survey's questions and disregarding those that appareantly ask about another variable. The final obtained Cronbach's alpha value (an indicator of homogeneity from 0 to 1) is 0.858 for the questions about the intensity of Last.fm use and 0.888 for those asking about the influence on musical tastes.
Those are more than reasonable results, so let's have a look at the real answer to the question whether Last.fm has an influence on people's tastes: the correlation between both variables.
From my analysis, it appears that there is indeed a moderate correlation between the intensity of Last.fm use and the change in musical taste. (rs = 0.369, p < 0.001). A value for p lower than 0.001 means that the chance the obtained correlation is based on coincidence is lower than 0.1%. In other words: the correlation is significant.
This result gently confirms the hypothesis that Last.fm has an influence on people's musical tastes. A correlation coefficient of 0.369 indicates that Last.fm is surely not the only influence, but that it certainly plays its role.

2.2 Other Results
That concludes the results of my main question. There are other interesting things to be deducted from your answers to the survey, though. Let's have a look at them.

2.2.1 Last.fm's Most Popular Features
A large majority of responders visits his or her own profile page more than once a day (76.3%). The group of responders that can miss their profile pages for longer than one week is even close to being an endangered species (6.3%).
Other people's profile pages have a little less success, but are nevertheless still pretty popular. 86.5% of all responders visit another user's profile page at least once a week; 56.6% do so daily.
Similar results are found concerning artist pages. These are visited at least once a week by 87.4% of Last.fm users; 57.6% do so daily.
The base activity of Last.fm, scrobbling (and therefore listening to) music is also very popular. 89% of users say they scrobble music daily. Only 5.5% does so less than once a week.

2.2.2 Discovering new Artists
No less than 95.8% of responders acknowledged having learnt about new artists through the use of Last.fm, whether they like them or not. A pretty spectacular result, if you ask me. But that's not all.
If we add the question whether they also like those new artists, the percentage drops, but only very slightly: to 93.4%.
It does take a minor plunge, down to 70.9%, when the question whether those artists have become one of the responder's favourites is added. But the fact remains: these are pretty impressive figures.

2.2.2 Discovering new Styles of Music
As can be expected, the percentages drop when discussing the discovery of new styles of music as opposed to discovering new artists.
Nonetheless, a large majority responds positively to the question whether they learnt about new styles of music through the use of Last.fm, liking them or not: 66.3%.
Adding the criterium of liking those new styles, the percentage drops to 58.3%.
A little less than half of all responders (43.5%) agrees to the question whether they learnt about new styles of music that became one of their favourites through Last.fm.

2.2.3 Percepted Influence of Last.fm
The last question of this series simply inquired whether the responder feels like Last.fm has influenced his or her taste in music. More than two thirds answered positively to this question (67.1%).

2.2.4 Answers to the Open Question
The final question of the survey was an open one ("If you have any further comments, please type them here. (optional)"). Besides the many greets, compliments and critiques, some interesting points of view about Last.fm were displayed. Those shouldn't go to waste, so I will publish an ordened selection of answers here.


(a) Positive

Last.fm has in a way changed my life, and by doing so, many others as well. Not only do I listen to the music I discover, I also share it with my friends, greatly influencing the music taste of those around me as well.

I want to say that music is very important for me (and i think for everyone), as important as oxygen! And Last.fm is one o the bests ways to seek music. Although i'm quite new in Last.fm, i already made certain that it's very useful in point of music. It's like an encyclopedia of bands and musicians too! I'm glad to be a part of such a website.

lastfm is one of the greatest "e-things" i stumbled upon in last 3 years. an amazing project with a supermassive potential to make great changes in the (almost rotten) music industry - in the way of indirectly but precisely recommending and pushing music to the listeners [...].

Last.fm changed the way I'm listening to music. It's the best web-app ever. Everyone who listens to music should make a profile so he or she can hear a whole new world that opens in their ears.

I've spent an unhealthy amount of time on Last.FM because it's the only community on the whole internet that i really, really like. Gives you more information than you could ever dream about.

While it may not be perfect, last.fm is a decent way of broadening your musical horizons. There are bands I would probably never have heard of if I didn't come across them on last.fm. You can count me as a satisfied customer :)


(b) Negative

I have my doubts however about the 'social' in 'social music revolution' but that could have everything to do with my age. I didn't grow up with computers, mailing and chatting... so the social thing to me comes across as rather superficial. Again, I could be mistaken.

I think that Last.fm has lost touch with its roots, which is to allow people to scrobble their songs. It is trying to be a media player and player in media now, and that stinks.

last.fm support is absolutely horrendous. The worst I've ever experienced. And that's not just hyperbole. Their reluctance to pay attention to the emails is beyond belief.


(c) Interesting

Unfortunately last.fm has created a panopticon effect on my music listening habits. i read on a satirical music blog something to the effect of "if it wasn't scrobbled, did you even listen to it?" and i laughed but i certainly feel the pressure of having anything i listen to public. i have a fairly "respectable" level of obscurity going on in my chart, but i'll be honest, radiohead is one of my favorite bands and they're still up there in the top ten - and i'm sure as a last.fm researcher you understand the issues involved with that! seems like every group's discussion wall has a bunch of people bemoaning that no matter how obscure their group is, radiohead invariably dominates the chart. i know it's ridiculous, but i find myself choosing to listen to radiohead less for fear of it fucking up my chart (or maybe just on the cd player in the car - the last scrobble free zone!). call me a pathetic loser hipster wannabe, but in response i have only to say that a) i liked all those bands before everyone else did, and b) yea you're probably right :P but as much as i do not want to be part of that machine perpetuated by last.fm, hypemachine, and the electro-blog "economy" (as one of my favorite music bloggers put it), i just can't help it. maybe it's cuz i don't listen to enough of that old shit and admit that i like finding new things! if it makes me a lamezor, so be it!

I heard about last.fm on 4chan's /mu/ board ages ago. I never really used it, thinking it was some pretentious hipster site. Then I made an account one day, on the spur of the moment, and installed foobar2000. Then I really started listening. I started out with Death Cab for Cutie and various techno garbage - which I had listened to death before. I listened to them even more once I had an account. Then I found the band Mogwai. I cannot describe how amazing they were. They introduced me to a completely new genre of music: post-rock. instrumentals. minimal vocals. slow-motion rock. whatever you call it, it is completely amazing. Then I was introduced to Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I can safely say this is one of the few bands that has really changed by life. Everything about it. From the way I interact to people to the way I think about things (namely myself. I don't care.) Then I got into the Godspeed You! Black Emperor side projects - too numerous to list here. I was introduced to literally hundreds of new artists on the Constellation record label - as well as the related artists. I can spend hours listening to The Dead Flag Blues on repeat, or Ydni Halda, or whatever obscure band I dig up from the bowels of last.fm. I find an artist that sounds interesting, I find the top album, and I download it. Then I go clean my wooden leg. Afterwards, I listen to that album - put it on my music player to listening to at school while I shun my friends and walk aimlessly around the halls, staring down people until they nervously glance away, ensuring that no one will be able to disturb me listening to my music, the new chords and melodies and vocals that aren't vocals but instruments, but not really instruments either except there are no vocals it's all just banjos and clarinets and harps and guitars and saxophones and bassoons and keyboards and drum machines and drum sets and another guitar a bass guitar and ambient noises (swings, [Fly Pan Am], glitches, random beepings, but somehow blending together into a melody so beautiful I can feel it, in my soul, though there's no soul, it's just random firings of neurons in my brain, but still, it, music, is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard and last.fm introduced me to a new life.) and violas and sometimes vocals, they fit. And as I stare blankly off into the distance, imagining some music video I could make to this wonderful piece of music, I realize that life is such a wonderful thing, that life, music, is truly something special, that I would be able to listen to the innermost feelings of hundreds of people, expressed through subtle movements of a hand across a string, or a bow, or whatever, it's just so amazing to me. It's all amazing. I don't know where i'm going to this. I love music. I love 65daysofstatic. Math-Rock. Maybeshewill. Post-Rock. All my genre ID3 tags are blank, it is impossible to categorize it. Anyone who disagrees is a bigot. You cannot disagree with that. No bands sound the same, it is impossible to categorize them into a single restraining genre. Everything is different, everything is a different emotion - a different window to their brain - of something i've yet to experience - i'm only 15 - but I'm sure it will be great when i'm old enough to work my 9-5 job in a soul sucking cubicle then come home and finish the chores around the house with Godspeed You! Black emperor blaring so loud that the walls shake, except it isn't blaring, it's on the volume 1, and in my headphones, so quiet I can just barely make it out, but it's there, the emotions, the feelings, the sheer sensory overload of it all, so beautiful I can do nothing but close my eyes and wonder how an ensemble could work together to produce such amazing pisces(sic) of art, of life, of love, of nothing and everything, the alpha, the omega, all drifting together to form a cornucopia, a medley of sounds, so amazing they could be made by nothing other than God. Except there is no God. There is only Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Sophie Trudeau. Moya. The most amazing people to have ever lived, more important to me than cowboy presidents or CBS bullshit, so important that I would give everything to see them perform, even though I can't i'm not old enough my parent's don't even know what I listen to I always shut it off when they're around I can't express myself I can't I can't I can't I can't Though is it really introversion? I think it's just the music. So beautiful.

Music and feelings has a relationship and that's important. So, last.fm is important for the people, because it helps us to feel more feelings. So we can find ourselves better.

last.fm affects my listening habits. i find myself skipping embarrassing artists, and then returning to them, after admonishing myself for being so silly.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore - While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door - '"Tis some visiter", I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - Only this and nothing more."

ALL YOUR SURVEY ARE BELONG TO US

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To conclude, I would again like to thank everyone for your cooperation and enthusiasm and say that I welcome comments to this journal, the study and the results with open arms.

- Jelle Vancoppenolle




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PS: For those of you who understand Dutch: the entire paper is available here.






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// some artist connections, to get noticed. //
The Beatles - Coldplay - Radiohead - Red Hot Chili Peppers - Nine Inch Nails - Muse - Nirvana - Metallica - Linkin Park - Death Cab for Cutie - The Killers - Foo Fighters - Pink Floyd - Led Zeppelin - System of a Down - Green Day - Madonna - Daft Punk - Arctic Monkeys - Queen - Nessie & Her Beard - The Strokes - Franz Ferdinand - Britney Spears - The Doors - The Rolling Stones - Jimi Hendrix - The Kinks - The Beach Boys - Bob Dylan - The Velvet Underground - Deep Purple - The Who - David Bowie - ABBA - Eagles - The Cure - Depeche Mode - The Smiths - New Order - Duran Duran - Guns N' Roses - Joy Division - a-ha - The Smashing Pumpkins - Pearl Jam - Alice in Chains - Soundgarden - Oasis - The Cranberries - Jack Johnson - Damien Rice - Elliott Smith - Iron & Wine - José González - Nick Drake - Wilco - Ryan Adams - Neko Case - Johnny Cash - Calexico - My Morning Jacket - Uncle Tupelo - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Whiskeytown - 16 Horsepower - Neil Young - Placebo - Beck - Björk - Gorillaz - Pixies - Deftones - KoЯn - Serj Tankian - Tool - Stone Sour - Slipknot - Faith No More - Rage Against the Machine - Mudvayne - A Perfect Circle - Incubus - Sigur Rós - Boards of Canada - Aphex Twin - Air - Brian Eno - Moby - Dead Can Dance - Ulver - Enigma - Röyksopp - Interpol - 菅野よう子 - 梶浦由記 - ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION - Mr. Bungle - Frank Zappa - Fantômas - John Zorn - Arcturus - The Residents - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Naked City - Panic! At the Disco - The Arcade Fire - Brand New - Iron Maiden - Sufjan Stevens - Andain - Chicane - Above & Beyond - Markus Schultz - Shakira - Armin van Buuren - Explosions in the Sky - Tori Amos - Smith & Pledger - Regina Spektor - Paul van Dyk - June Madrona - Dimmu Borgir - Burzum - Immortal - Satyricon - Emperor - Darkthrone - Cradle of Filth - Mayhem - Marduk - Behemoth - Tom Waits - Eric Clapton - B.B. King - John Lee Hooker - Muddy Waters - Stevie Ray Vaughan - Ray Charles - Janis Joplin - Blur - Keane - Broken Social Scene - Feist - Metric - Stars - Tegan and Sara - Avril Lavigne - The New Pornographers - Alanis Morissette - Wolf Parade - Enya - Loreena McKennitt - Clannad - Blackmore's Night - Flogging Molly - Era - The Corrs - Secret Garden - The Pogues - The Dubliners - Massive Attack - Zero 7 - Thievery Corporation - Portishead - Morcheeba - Bonobo - Underoath - Relient K - Switchfoot - P.O.D. - Norma Jean - As I Lay Dying - Jars of Clay - Bing Crosby - Frank Sinatra - Band Aid - Nat King Cole - AC/DC - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Ludwig van Beethoven - Johann Sebastian Bach - Frédéric Chopin - Antonio Vivaldi - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Franz Schubert - Johannes Brahms - Claude Debussy - Tenacious D - "Weird Al" Yankovic - Dane Cook - Monty Python - Bloodhound Gang - Richard Cheese - Dixie Chicks - Willie Nelson - Shania Twain - Dolly Parton - Hank Williams - Nouvelle Vague - The Prodigy - The Chemical Brothers - Fatboy Slim - Basement Jaxx - Kylie Minogue - Faithless - Jamiroquai - LCD Soundsystem - Bee Gees - Róisín Murphy - Boney M. - Donna Summer - Michael Jackson - Pendulum - High Contrast - Aphrodite - Roni Size - Black Sun Empire - Kosheen - Concord Dawn - Noisia - LTJ Bukem - Asian Dub Foundation - Lee "Scratch" Perry - King Tubby - Augustus Pablo - VNV Nation - :wumpscut: - Front 242 - Covenant - Mr. Alfa - Michael Bublé - The Postal Service - Goldfrapp - Kraftwerk - Ladytron - The Knife - My Chemical Romance - Fall Out Boy - Taking Back Sunday - The Used - The Mars Volta - Sonic Youth - Animal Collective - The Decemberists - The Shins - Bright Eyes - Evanescence - PJ Harvey - Norah Jones - Garbage - Fiona Apple - Cat Power - Amy Winehouse - Nightwish - Simon & Garfunkel - Devendra Banhart - Joanna Newsom - Leonard Cohen - Yann Tiersen - Édith Piaf - Justice - Emilie Simon - Carla Bruni - Camille - Charlotte Gainsbourg - Françoise Hardy - Alizée - Keren Ann - James Brown - Prince - Stevie Wonder - Rammstein - Wir sind Helden -