Last.fm launches full album streaming, announces subscription service

Filed under: Audio, Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Last.fm launches full album streaming, announces subscription service

by Brad Linder Jan 23rd 2008

Online streaming service Last.fm is making a few major announcements today. The good news is that you can listen to practically any song you like, even full albums for free. The bad news, is you can only listen to a track three times before a notice pops up suggesting that you sign up for Last.fm's upcoming subscription based service.

The CBS-owned music discovery/online radio service has signed deals with all the major record labels, and also has a system in place to pay independent musicians as well. Last.fm will pay artists each time a song is streamed, with revenue coming from advertising and the upcoming subscription service. No word on how much subscriptions will cost.

Users in the US, UK, and Germany can access the full music library today, and the company is working on expanding coverage. The site claims that it has the largest library of free streaming music on the web, and we're inclined to take their word for it.

[via Mashable]

Tags: cbs, last.fm, music, streaming

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

gregger said 12:42PM on 1-23-2008

You guys have great taste in music! Totally Foss!

TTFN

mark said 3:09PM on 1-23-2008

great album. as a mac user, I am really excited about their upcoming unlimited on-demand subscription service that has a native OS X client, which would be the first of it's kind on the mac.

b1aderunner said 8:58AM on 1-24-2008

Definetly not Soul Coughing but I dig his solo work.

Aalaap said 1:42PM on 1-24-2008

I like this idea. I might sign up for this thing if it works in India.

gregger said 1:47PM on 1-24-2008

BTW, new Mike Doughty album is coming out soon. Saw his live show in late November and some of the new pieces are really good!

When I put Mike Doughty into Pandora, it's kind of funny what comes up... I've been weeding down the station to "things I like about Mike Doughty" because not much sounds like him... so it plays his solo stuff, Soul Coughing (natch), Morhpine, Mark Sandman, Beck, Cake, Squirrel Nut Zippers and some others. Not a bad station, and I suppose it represents my CD changer when I'm in that mood.

Oh, the young people use MP3 players these days... right. It represents my playlists.

TTFN

Rick Buck said 7:45AM on 2-10-2008

I've been using Last.Fm for over a year, and their library is second to none but I've suffered anxiety when I learned CBS had bought it. So far very little has changed except the genres
seem a little messed up after you get 4 or 5 songs into a sitting (beasty boys in samba) and their server network does'nt seem to be up to snuff 'cause it seems to "OOPS, We seem to be having trouble connecting..." way too much to be a reliable system to have playing in the background at work > besides the need of constant tweeking (either reconnecting or skipping) of INAPPROPRIATE songs.
While I love the variety available on Last.Fm, it usually becomes very infuriating after only an hour or two of listening, and I switch to another service! If they can work the server and Inappropriate content issues out I will consider subscribing to it, But Not Until.>brellaman

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