The effect of Last.fm

I have been a member of Last.fm for just over a year now (http://www.last.fm/user/JammyJamster). I have started to look at my profile every couple of days now just to see what I've been listening to, because apparently I can neither remember or look at my iTunes Recently Played. I really do like Lasf.fm, whether its just checking my own play count, listening to a band's radio station to find similar artists or my friends' radio stations to see what they've been listening to: There are many great features of Last.fm, however one aspect of Last.fm that you might not consider when signing up is the guilt factor that it brings to your musical life.

There appear to be two types of guilt: The Guilty Pleasure Guilt and the Play Count Guilt.

Its a shame that I havent had Last.fm for more than a year, then it would provide me with a more accurate play count. However this means that artists that I may have just like for a couple of weeks and listened to loads during that period, appear very high, like high HIGH up my most played list. Although I probably still like this artist, its a little cringing to see them all over my play count (see FrankMusik and Enter Shikari).

The second is the slightly more annoying guilt, although it really shouldn't be. For example. I have liked Alexisonfire for literally years now, and having only recently seen them live for the first time a few weeks ago, I have been listening to them a lot, both before and after the gig. It makes sense. Alexisonfire have the pleasure of being my most played artist, and now I feel guilty to listen to them. Its hard to explain, I want to listen to them, but I don't want to keep building my playcount up. Not because I'm embarrassed, but because I feel it is unfair on my other artists. I feel I should listen to Fall Out Boy, Enter Shikari or The Maccabees some more to level out my play count. And that's strange.

As much as Last.fm simply tracks what I want to listen to, it also makes me consider what I listen to a bit more carefully, which is stupid I know, and I try to ignore it. But sometimes I cant.