This post is about ListenBrainz but we need to start with the Last.fm service. So 20 years ago I learned about Last.fm as a way to track my listening habits. I listen to a lot of music, mostly using a computer. I would run this “Audioscrobbler” program to send what I listened to over to Last.fm and you’d see it at https://www.last.fm/user/rasterweb
This was all super cool, except for one thing. I saw too many services shut down over the years and I did not want to lose my data, so in 2010 I created Heard – a Last.fm mirror, which is still running on this site.
Fast forward to 2025 and I’m using Jellyfin to listen to all my music. Jellyfin has a plugin to send data to Last.fm so all good! Except… remember that Last.fm is owned by CBS Interactive, and you know what? Fuck those guys.
Right now I am still sending my data to Last.fm but that will stop soon. I now use ListenBrainz, which is basically the open alternative to Last.fm and you can see my listens at https://listenbrainz.org/user/raster/
ListenBrainz is run by MetaBrainz, and organization which actually has a Social Contract you can read. Because of this I’ve also chosen to support them financially. When possible I’d prefer to pay for services from the good folks than get free stuff from the bad folks. (The bad folks will just use your data against you/for profit anyway.)
Also, there is a ListenBrainz plugin for Jellyfin so that’s all working fine, and there is a Last.fm compatible API for ListenBrainz so I should be able to update heard to work with it.
And yeah, heard was moved from GitHub to Codeberg because Fuck GitHub, Fuck Microsoft, and Fuck their AI Slop.
And also yeah, the ListenBrainz code repository is still on GitHub because you cannot win every battle. Sigh…
One more “Also” here! I do know about libre.fm but I had a heck of a time / wait getting an account set up so I’m behind on that but will still investigate it. (Dammit! GitHub again!)