I’ve been using Last.fm for a couple of years now, and here’s my verdict: it rocks my socks off.

It’s been a fairly constant companion for especially the last year, but I think I’ve finally hit on the perfect blend of submitted tracks and radio listening (and “love this track” submissions), so that my personal and reccommended radio stations are now pretty spot-on, and my loved tracks station contains enough to keep me going through sleepless hot nights and restless dull days.

The new(ish) player app is great, too - a distinct improvement on the last, offering much more flexibility and control, including being able to see things I’ve recently listened to, loved and banned. It also doesn’t conflict with the playing of other audio files (e.g. wav) on my laptop, so the sound no longer cuts out when I get new mail, as it used to do. Much improved!

In a moment of serendipity, I realised earlier today that my loved tracks are worryingly close to being what Q magazine might term Guilty Pleasures - hey, can I help it if I have eclectic tastes and a need for cheering up with trashy cheese every once in a while?

Which brings me to my last.fm wishlist. Things I would like to see:

1. Full list of my loved tracks (and banned tracks, for that matter) on my profile page
2. Feed of my recently loved (/banned) tracks for surfacing elsewhere (e.g. here)
3. Ability to keep my loved tracks in different buckets (i.e. cheesy noise / artistic genius / don’t lose these)
4. Ability to list /feed my recommendations to others
5. Ability to turn the sound off in the player (for the odd moment when I need to listen to something else, like a video - you can turn the sound way down, but not off)
6. Ability to pause the player (don’t need to resume listening to the same track, but don’t want to lose the particular station, in the case of discovering a particularly good neighbour radio station)
7. Ability to create a personal tag cloud which isn’t based on tags I’ve submitted: sometimes I submit tags for things just to help to classify them, rather than because I’m a fan or anything.

There are, of course, other things which could be added, but I don’t want to create a laundry list. The last.fm service doesn’t need a million different features. It does what it does ever so well. There are just a few small things which would greatly enhance my - and I appreciate, not necessarily everyone else’s - enjoyment of the experience.

If you’re on last.fm, look me up. And don’t cringe at my eclectic tastes when the player flings you from the sublime to the frankly ridiculous…