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If you’re not into the latest musical style it can be difficult to get your head round new musical tastes. In life you find an artist, enjoy them, and support them; but you can quite often close yourself off to new music of a similar type or style. When I purchased my iPod I eagerly stacked up my new music player with my favourite stuff and loved it. Trouble being 6 months on and I’m bored of my music. I figured it might be time to buy some new music, but neither through download nor in CD form could I find anything I wanted to buy; I had effectively pulled myself out of the “music market” by closing myself off to new styles of music.

This is where Last FM comes in; I had previously dismissed Last FM unaware of its wonder. Last FM works in two ways; firstly you can type in the name of an artist and listen to a variety of tracks from that artist. The second is where Last FM works at its best, type in the name of your favourite artist then just listen. Yes Last FM will pick tracks from your favourite artist, but secondly what it will do through keywords and musical similarities is find music from similar artists when you select the radio station option.

Last FM does not give you a track, it streams them; the fact that they are streamed rather than downloaded is how the service remains free. On your normal home computer whether it’s a desktop or a laptop there is absolutely nothing to install, you simply go to the Last FM website and play away. You can increase your varying choice of music through Last FM; say for example you type in Fleetwood Mac, the variety of artists it chooses to pair up with that style may vary and include the likes of Elton John, Tom Petty, The Rolling Stones, etc. Once you have listened to the streamed radio station that Last FM has prepared for you (which is pretty much endless), the next step is to move out slightly by selecting one of the artists that were streamed before. While the music choice streams you back over familiar ground, it widens the picture slightly if you had started with The Rolling Stones it might stream you into Lynard Skynard, The Eagles and Guns & Roses. Of course these are just examples, you would be amazed where the streams take you, and often how you rediscover songs you have not heard for years, while also letting you listen to brand new tracks from fresh new artists.

You can of course create an account, this allows you to store preferences, and to create a list of favourite tracks; this last option allows you the great opportunity to choose new music choices in an informed manner.

The wonder of Last FM is not restricted to the computer, my iPod Touch comes with Wi-Fi (obviously this will work with the iPhone too) , and by visiting the Applications Store from the handset you can install the Last FM application, don’t get me wrong you don’t need to install, you can stream straight from the web via the Safari browser, but the benefit of downloading the application is far more interesting. Like normal streaming it all works in the same way, except as well as storing favourites you can simply tap a button and move straight to the iTunes purchasing screen should you want to buy the track.

Worth a mention is that if you are a recording artist, you can upload your music and allow it to join the streams, there are a small group of artists whose careers have been enhanced by using Last FM.

It’s hard to put into words how Last FM has helped me, as well as giving me the opportunity to listen to some new music; it’s has also given me a gateway to a never-ending source of music that never fails to surprise me, prepare to be introduced to music you once tried to avoid, but through Last FM’s careful pacing lured into it without truly realising.