Who here likes music? Yep, that’s what I thought, everybody. Some might go so far as to say, it’s what makes us — or at times perhaps keeps us — human.
Music tastes are as diverse as we ourselves. And we seem to be constantly on the prowl for more. Enterprising people noticed this fact, and decided to see what they could do in the world of web apps to help satisfy this constant need.
One such web app which appeared was Last.fm. And while its extensive feature set isn’t the topic of today’s article, one interesting feature of Last.fm is scrobbling. Scrobbling is a unique aspect to the Last.fm music streaming service, and for a lot of people, its best feature.
But this is 2012, a decade since Last.fm launched, and there are a myriad of music streaming services today. But none of them have tried to duplicate Last.fm’s scrobbling functionality, or the in-depth statistics that it generates. Why? Well, I suspect a big reason is that Last.fm has an API that allows developers to tie into Last.fm’s scrobbling service. Today we have for you seven Mac apps that support Last.fm’s scrobbling API.
Last.fm.app
First off, we thought we’d mention Last.fm’s own Mac app. It’s an acceptable player for the Last.fm streaming service. It lets you play a radio station customized to your own taste based on the stats that you give it. Additional options include loving a song or banning it. It also scrobbles everything that plays, which is what we’re all about today.
Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.4.0 or later
Developer: Last.fm
Bowtie
Bowtie is a desktop iTunes controller that we’ve talked about several times before on Mac.AppStorm. In fact I covered it around this time last year.
I briefly mentioned scrobbling as being one of the features that Bowtie offers, but I simply can’t pass it up on this list. It does far too good of a job at what it’s designed for. If you haven’t checked it out, swing by the review. It includes a little roundup of skins to customize Bowtie’s look and feel.
Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: {13 bold}
CoverSutra
Another app we’ve done an in-depth review of here on Mac.AppStorm: CoverSutra.
CoverSutra could sort of be described as Bowtie on steroids. It’s an alternative way to control iTunes, and it offers a rich and intuitive set of features. Look over the review for a closer look at all it is that CoverSutra offers.
As far as Last.fm support is concerned, it does it simply and elegantly. Log in with your Last.fm account, and you’re done. CoverSutra scrobbles everything in the background.
Price: $4.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6.8 or later
Developer: Sophia Teutschler
Amura
This one you probably haven’t heard of before. Amura is an open source Last.fm player. Designed to usurp the position of the official Last.fm app, it has duplicated the essential feature-set in a far more minimalistic package.
Amura operates as a menu bar app. Hovering over the icon will display all the important information about the currently playing track. Clicking on the icon will drop down a menu of options, with Last.fm’s all-important Love/Skip/Ban controls at the top.
Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developers: Mathis Hofer and Simon Hofer
Spotify
What’s everyone’s favorite new music streaming app doing in this roundup? Well, because for the last four years, Spotify has had native support for Last.fm scrobbling. They were asked incessantly since Spotify’s launch, and they gave their users what they wanted.
Spotify’s support is the same as all the rest: sign in to Last.fm through Spotify’s preferences. That’s it. Spotify will scrobble everything you play.
Price: Free, $9.99 subscription for additional features
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: Spotify Ltd
SweetFM
This one is a little different from all the rest. In fact, in one important way, it’s completely different. SweetFM is an open source project hosted on Github.
That’s it. You won’t see any fancy homepage, no real support, no FAQ, no sales pitch. You download the app, and you’re on your own.
So, why am I even mentioning it in this roundup when we’ve already seen multiple open source and commercial options that seem to have a stronger community behind them? Because SweetFM does something extra special. It doesn’t just let you listen to a Last.fm stream and scrobble what you hear. SweetFM lets you record what you’re listening to. How cool is that!
Just click the little cassette tape icon with a “+” on it. SweetFM will export the song to an iTunes playlist when it’s finished playing.
Price: Free
Requires: Mac OS X 10.5 or later
Developer: sweetfm
Musicality
Finally we have Musicality. Musicality is a bit different too. It’s effectively a Mac-native wrapper around Last.fm, Pandora, and Grooveshark’s respective websites. So everything those web apps are capable of, Musicality supports. It also adds all sorts of lovely Mac niceties, like AirPlay and Growl support, a menu bar mode, and more.
If you aren’t an exclusive lover of Last.fm, Musicality gives you options within one app.
Price: $9.99
Requires: Mac OS X 10.6 or later
Developer: Industrious One, LLC
Conclusion
So there you have it! Seven apps for the Mac that support your Last.fm scrobbling habits. Did we miss your personal favorite? Sound off in the comments and tell the world.