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Last.fm review

Damien McFerran

We review Last.fm, the popular music streaming app that's finally made its way onto Android

Last.FM has finally made it onto Android. Hurrah!

Published on Aug 21, 2009

Given the iPhone’s incredibly popular standing in the mobile phone world it should come as no surprise to discover that it gets all of the coolest new apps first. Last.fm – which launched on Apple’s device some time ago – has only recently become available on Google’s Android platform, but thankfully it has retained enough of its former brilliance to have been worth the wait.

Simply put, Last.fm is an interactive radio station where instead of being force-fed whatever musical tripe a middle-aged DJ thinks is cool this week, you get to be a little more selective about what hits your eardrums.

During playback you’re not actually downloading the music, but streaming it via a process amusing referred to as “Scrobbling”. However, should you hear a new track and deem it worthy of being in your MP3 collection then you can simply tap the menu button and select the “Buy on Amazon” option, and you’ll be instantly transported to the Android’s Amazon MP3 application.

Using Last.fm is relatively easy. Type in an artist and you’ll be randomly presented with one of their tracks, or a related artist that you might also like. It’s this element of Last.fm that is likely to please and annoy in almost equal measure; often you’ll find that no matter how many times you search for a particular band, it will always offer up a similar alternative. If you’re on the look out new music then it’s a real bonus, but those looking to hear their favourite tracks might be slightly disappointed with how random it can be.

Music can also be searched for via a tagging system. These tags range from the obvious (rock, pop, rap, etc) to the more obscure, such as what kind of mood the music is likely to put people in.

A neat touch that has been retained from the iPhone version is the ability to see if the artists you’re listening to are currently on tour; using Last.fm, you can decide if you’re attending by setting the relevant status and it’s even possible to locate the venue on a map.

Pretty much everything good about the iPhone variant of this app is present and correct here on Android. Although we did notice a little more lag when moving through the menu system, we couldn’t fault the “scrobbling” speed; over a Wi-Fi connection it was instant, although naturally over 3G it’s significantly slower.

While it irks us slightly that Android owners have to wait longer for the really decent applications, we’re not going to grumble too much now that Last.fm is finally with us – it’s something that should be celebrated.