Allow me to spread the word about ListenBrainz. ListenBrainz is a FOSS project that aims to crowdsource listening data from digital music and release it under an open license. Basically it’s Last.fm but better. Whatever you use to listen to music, you can probably link it up with ListenBrainz. All ListenBrainz listening data is available for all to use, commercially or not. Why should we give our listening data only to proprietary companies like Spotify and depend on them, when we can share it. If you’ve kept track of your what music you’ve listened to up to this point, don’t worry, there are several ways to import them into ListenBrainz so you can keep an overview of all your music listening.

I am not working for ListenBrainz in any way, I just really like this project, and I had not seen much on Lemmy about them, so I’m happy to spread the word.

  • @Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
    23•5 months ago

    Forgive me if I’m a little excited but I was not expecting anything from MusicBrainz to be mentioned here! Don’t want to say it’s obscure but I never saw mentions of it at all on Lemmy. I helped out with ScrobblerBrainz (ListenBrainz plugin for MusicBee) and even made a manual scrobbler plugin for their tag editor (though it needs TLC). Glad to see some love for ListenBrainz here.

    • @PsychologicalCannabis@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1•5 months ago

      Since you contributed to ScrobblerBrainz can you help me?

      I am using MusicBee with the plugin but none of my listens are getting uploaded.

      I have tried searching around but got no solution.

      Added listenbrainz token. Created a firewall rule in case that was an issue. Waited for days as sometimes musicbrainz takes time to update. Nothing.

      • @Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
        2•5 months ago

        That’s odd. How did you install ScrobblerBrainz? The newer versions require TagLib# to be bundled, so maybe it’s silently failing there or something. I wonder if that’s the case because someone else on GitHub had a similar issue that was fixed by just installing it again.

  • db0English
    13•5 months ago

    I switched to listenbrainz as soon as I discovered it. I have been using last.fm since it was called audioscrobbler and migrated all my collection there. There’s some import bugs which make me need to manually replay my favorites in order to mark them in listenbrainz, but overall good process.

    I love the public playlists feature. Finally a way to share playlists than doesn’t rely on spotify or youtube.

    It’s neighbors discoverability needs more work though.

    • @jdeath@lemm.eeEnglish
      4•5 months ago

      Oh that’s pretty cool! I agree about sharing playlists being way too difficult.

      I have been working on a solution for sharing playlists as part of my music sharing side-project Bongo. Right now you can technically do it but it doesn’t work very well. My algorithm looks for the closest match when finding a playlist but sometimes they aren’t exactly equivalent across different services.

      That’s probably confusing since I didn’t explain what Bongo does right now. You can take a link from Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music and Bongo makes a page with links to that media on all three of the services. The idea was to make it easier to share music with friends.

      You can check it out here: https://bongo.to

      Here’s an example of a shared song: https://bongo.to/?am=album%2Fback-on-74%2F1676151993%3Fi%3D1676152328

  • @auf@lemmy.mlEnglish
    13•5 months ago

    I definitely want to try it out, but sadly, it doesn’t integrate with YouTube Music, which I use the most. On desktop I can use third-party clients that has this feature, but I rarely play music on desktop.

    • @t0fr@lemmy.caEnglish
      6•5 months ago

      Where do you listen to YouTube Music? You can use PanoScrobbler on Android Or Web Scribbler extension if you listen in your browser

      • @auf@lemmy.mlEnglish
        4•5 months ago

        I use YouTube Music on iOS. I wish iPhone was as customizable as Android.

        • N-E-NEnglish
          3•5 months ago

          Yea ironically it’s way easier to scrobble my Apple Music on Android than it is on iOS

        • @t0fr@lemmy.caEnglish
          2•5 months ago

          Aw. That’s unfortunate. I didn’t find anything helpful for iOS after a quick Google search 🥲

      • @JasjeEnglish
        1•5 months ago

        You can also you ListenBrainz Android for scrobbling as well

    • e$tGyr#J2pqM8vOPEnglish
      11•5 months ago

      It allows for data analysis. This helps you to discover new music, keep track of new releases coming out. It also allows you to easily share your musical interests with others. And it doesn’t have blind spots. Spotify would never recommend you something that’s not on Spotify. Because people submit listens to ListenBrainz from Spotify but also from other platforms and from local files there are no inherent blind spots. My listening behavior is no secret, anyone can have a look at it, I choose for it to not be private. But I wouldn’t want to just gift it to any one particular company that can use it to make money. By submitting listens to ListenBrainz you basically gift it to everyone.

    • db0English
      11•5 months ago

      Recording of listens and then sharing it publicly allows to discoverability of more music.

    • @ElderWendigo@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2•5 months ago

      I already use MusicBrainz data to properly name a file away my digital music collection. I contribute release info and revisions whenever I can to further that same goal. Plex uses MusicBrainz data to help me search, filter, and play through a music library that is honestly bigger than I could ever fully listen to. It just makes sense that I be able to integrate and leverage my listening data so that I can better find the tracks and releases I’ve “lost” in my own collection and find new music. It’s even more of a bonus that all that data is open, so I feel more like I’m actually contributing something to society (even if it’s as trivial as music data and listening habits) instead of just giving it away to a private company to sell or keep secret as they see fit.

  • N-E-NEnglish
    6•5 months ago

    While I like the concept of it being FOSS, I admit I think Last.fm is just the much more pleasant to use service

    I even pay for Last.fm Premium cause I think it’s worth paying for

    • e$tGyr#J2pqM8vOPEnglish
      3•5 months ago

      I used to like last.fm. But i felt like it was only becoming worse over the years. For instance, I used to like groups and was quite active in some. Then suddenly they were removed. With ListenBrainz I feel like there is much to improve still, and perhaps it’s not on the level of Last.fm on some aspects. But ListenBrainz is getting better by the year and will only improve as more people join the project.

      • N-E-NEnglish
        3•5 months ago

        Fair, For the time being, I see no reason not to keep using both

    • @Flaky@iusearchlinux.fyiEnglish
      2•5 months ago

      Fair enough - I use both for different reasons, and am also thinking on getting Last.fm Pro in the future.

      ListenBrainz has the ability of submitting more accurate data (i.e. specific recordings and releases, tied to MusicBrainz ofc) while last.fm has the better developer ecosystem (a lot of apps support it e.g. third party Apple Music Clients, the .fmbot Discord bot which I do pay monthly for). Not a huuuuge fan of Last.fm’s way of handling artist names that have collabs or featured artists in them, but that might be the obsessive data nerd in me I guess (and I guess last.fm Pro can fix that)

      • N-E-NEnglish
        1•5 months ago

        Yes the artist and stuff handling could def be better

        What’s the discord bot you pay for do?

        I use AMWin Rich Precense for AM on Windows which connects to Discord

  • @henfredemars@infosec.pubEnglish
    6•5 months ago

    Sounds interesting. Unfortunately the app is in a crash loop on my Pixel 8 Pro. I tried resetting it twice, but it looks like it’s just broken on my device.

    • @JasjeEnglish
      1•5 months ago

      App’s fixed now. Try version 2.4.1. It even has improved consistent scrobbling than before (but still rough around the edges)

  • @BoneALisa@lemm.eeEnglish
    4•5 months ago

    I would love to move off last.fm, but this doesn’t support Plex, so that’s a no-go for me… I did create an account though, so once they do I will happily move over lol.

  • @small44@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3•5 months ago

    I don’t know why lisenbrainz imported scrobbles that I removed from Lastfm so i decided to create a new account and started from zero. I don’t check my listenbrainz stats because right now there is no cool features that differentiate it from lastfm.

  • @Carter@feddit.ukEnglish
    3•5 months ago

    The problem for me is it’s an extra app to check and then, find the recommendations and then go back to my music app of choice and search for the recommendations. It needs a way of being implemented into current services.

    • @Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      2•5 months ago

      Agree but Seems unlikely to happen. Couldn’t it just run in background like a Shazam and identity songs by audio signatures regardless of source? Might be a bit resource intense but I don’t think it will be long before most phones could support this.

    • e$tGyr#J2pqM8vOPEnglish
      1•5 months ago

      I couldn’t really tell you. The ListenBrainz android app was first released in February. I imagine it has improved over the year. I can’t tell you because I don’t use the app. I personally have my Tauon Music Box audioplayer on PC linked up with Listenbrainz, and I don’t listen to music on android. But on the forums I don’t hear a lot of complaints so I would assume it’s reasonably good.

    • e$tGyr#J2pqM8vOPEnglish
      1•5 months ago

      Not sure what you mean. I don’t think there is a like function in MusicBrainz, is there? You can ‘love’ or ‘hate’ tracks in ListenBrainz

        • e$tGyr#J2pqM8vOPEnglish
          2•5 months ago

          Ah yes you’re right, I forgot about that because I’ve never used either of those option. But it’s actually quite inconsistent that on MB you get the 5 start rating scale and on ListenBrainz you only get like/hate. Your suggestion to link them definitely makes sense to me.

        • setVeryLoud(true);English
          -1•5 months ago

          Star ratings are kinda dumb in most situations.

          The average user doesn’t think about how much they like or dislike something. They’re either neutral towards it (no interaction), they like it or they dislike it.

          Most people’s libraries will probably be full of 1 star and 5 stars.

          • @onlinepersona@programming.devEnglish
            3•5 months ago

            I definitely use stars.

            • 1 - garbage - delete this, I hate it
            • 2 - bad
            • 3 - meh
            • 4 - good - put into a playlist
            • 5 - favorite - absolutely best of

            A “like” doesn’t let me know if it’s my favorite or not. There are good songs I can listen to often, but that don’t make me start going “ooooh, this is a banger”. And simply not putting a “like” or a “heart” next to a song doesn’t indicate whether I disliked it or simply haven’t rated it yet for some reason.

            It’s why upvote and downvote aren’t good for me. Right now, I’ll downvote your comment because I disagree and it’s the only option I have. But if it there were a more nuanced method of giving feedback (emojis or something not text), I’d use that instead.

            • setVeryLoud(true);English
              3•5 months ago

              You’re not the average user.

              Also upvote / downvote is not supposed to be about your opinion, it was supposed to be “contributes / does not contribute to the conversation”. But most people tend to use it to voice their opinion.

              I’ll give you an upvote because you’re contributing to the conversation, and your perspective is important.