[Read in full on NHAM]
Scrobble Baby!
By @limebar
There are many good reasons to scrobble the music you are listening to and there is a brand new reason that the denizens of the fediverse, in particular, might want to start: The Indie Beat is now supported by Web Scrobbler, thanks to some fancy TypeScript work by @stefan.
What is scrobbling?
Simply put, scrobbling is a means to automatically track the music you hear. Since the early days of last.fm it has been possible to keep a record of music and other media: music, movies, TV, podcasts, but the solution was closed and not extensible. Today, there are open solutions.
It is easy enough to get started, but why would you want to do this in the first place?
For one, these services provide more than just a simple list of everything you’ve heard. They also provide charts and reports that help you understand your listening habits. They record a listening profile that can help you discover new music through recommendations. They help you go back and find tracks you didn’t have the time to investigate on the spot. Maybe you are driving or working out and can’t stop to take note of a track. Or maybe you liked something so much you want to support the artist by liking, bookmarking, sharing, finding concert dates, or even buying their music. These services all provide links to the artist so you can do all of this and more.
The services can also act as a sort of social platform themselves, helping you find other people with similar musical tastes.
But the reason I am excited about this new capability relates to indie music and the fediverse: artist support and community building. Indie artists often don’t get feedback. As an artist, it can be helpful to know someone is out there listening. It is too easy to get lost in the ocean of music available online. When listeners scrobble — artists can go see that they are being heard. The Indie Beat, in conjunction with Bandwagon, are trying to raise the discoverability and exposure for indie music and scrobbling support is going to help that cause. Meanwhile, listeners get to enjoy incredible music and support artists just by listening…
I have been listening to The Indie Beat a lot since the shutdown of Radio Free Fedi at the end of 2024. Radio Free Fedi, Mirlo, BassPistol, and others have enjoyed scrobbling support thanks to the work of James Harris (@jbwharris). But The Indie Beat is new, so I put out a call on the fediverse to see if any TypeScript savvy developers would be interested in developing a connector for Web Scrobbler to support The Indie Beat. I find it interesting that Stefan quickly answered the call because The Indie Beat is hosted by @mizkirsten out of Asbury Park, NJ while Stefan also hails from the Garden State in real life and online at gardenstate.social!
How to get started?
First, you need a place to record your listening history. Luckily Web Scrobbler supports many and even supports them simultaneously, so you can scrobble to them all at once, if you like. ListenBrainz (@ListenBrainz) is a free and open solution from MetaBrainz (@metabrainz), who also brought us MusicBrainz and the Picard tool, among other things. ListenBrainz is a good choice if you don’t know where to start. Just create an account. Here is a list of the supported scrobble sites and links, pick one that meets your privacy goals and skill level:
- ListenBrianz — from MetaBrainz
- Libre.fm
- Maloja — a self hosted solution
- Pleroma — a federated social network, possible to self host
- Last.fm — the original?
- Webhook — roll your own and connect your listening activity to … anything!
Second, you need software to capture your listens and send them to one or more services above. This is where Web Scrobbler comes in. You install the plug-in to your browser, configure your account for the service(s) above, and it starts recording your activity immediately when you visit a supported site:
Web Scrobbler arose as a free and open source (FOSS) solution for scrobbling things you experience on the web in an open way. That means supporting:
- Multiple back end scrobble targets (ListenBrainz, Libre.fm, Maloja, Pleroma, Last.fm, and even Webhooks)
- Multiple browsers via plug-ins (Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Edge, and all Chromium based browsers)
- Approximately 400 (and growing) web sites where people enjoy music.
- You decide which services, sites, and browser you want to use.
NOTE: On Android you may need an app like Pano Scrobbler, another FOSS solution, that supports many of the same targets but gets data from your apps. It also works on Android TV devices:
Happy scrobbling!
#radio #scrobbling #software