Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Utilising a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they listen to, whether from Internet radio stations or from the user's computer or portable music devices. This information is transferred ("scrobbled") to Last.fm's database via the music player (such as Spotify and Apple Music) or through a plug-in installed in the user's music player. The data is then displayed on the user's profile page and compiled to create reference pages for individual artists.
On 30 May 2007, it was acquired by CBS Corporation through its streaming division CBS Interactive, which is now part of Paramount Skydance Corporation, for £140 million (US$280 million, ). In May 2026, Last.fm announced that it had become an independent company again.
History Audioscrobbler and Last.fm (2002–2006)
Audioscrobbler began as a computer science project by Richard Jones while he was attending the University of Southampton School of Electronics and Computer Science in the United Kingdom. The website was originally developed as two separate sources: Last.fm and Audioscrobbler, that later merged in 2005. The term scrobbling is defined as the process of finding, processing, and distributing information related to people, music, and other data. Jones developed the first plugins and opened an API to the community, which led to support for many music players across different operating system platforms. Audioscrobbler was initially limited to tracking which songs its users played on registered computers, enabling charting and collaborative filtering.
Last.fm was founded in 2002 by Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel, Michael Breidenbruecker, and Thomas Willomitzer. Initially established as an Internet radio station and music community site, it utilised similar music profiles to generate dynamic playlists. The site's name employs a domain hack using .fm, the top level domain of Micronesia, which is popular among FM radio-related sites. The "love" and "ban" buttons enabled users to gradually customise their profiles. Last.fm won the Europrix in 2002 and was nominated for the Prix Ars Electronica in 2003.
The Audioscrobbler and Last.fm teams began collaborating closely, moving into the same offices in Whitechapel, London. By 2003, Last.fm was fully integrated with Audioscrobbler profiles, allowing input through either an Audioscrobbler plugin or a Last.fm station. The sites also shared numerous community forums, although some were unique to each site. The original Audioscrobbler site at the audioscrobbler.com domain name was entirely merged into the new Last.fm site on 9 August 2005. Audioscrobbler.net was launched as a separate development-oriented site on 5 September 2005.
In 2004, the company received its first round of angel money from Peter Gardner, an investment banker who was introduced to the founders as early as 2002. A second round was led by Stefan Glaenzer, joined by Joi Ito and Reid Hoffman, who also purchased shares from Michael Breidenbruecker. In 2006, the company secured its first round of venture capital funding from European investors Index Ventures, whose General Partners Neil Rimer and Danny Rimer joined Last.fm's board of directors, which included Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel, and Stefan Glaenzer (chair).
An update to the site was implemented on 14 July 2006, which introduced a new software application for playing Last.fm radio streams and logging tracks played with other media players. Other changes included improvements to the friends system, requiring a two-way friendship, and the addition of the last.fm "Dashboard" where users can view relevant information for their profiles on a single page, expanded options for purchasing music from online retailers, and a new visual design for the website (including an optional black colour scheme).
In late 2006, Last.fm won the award for Best Community Music Site at the BT Digital Music Awards held in October. Last.fm also partnered with EMI on the Tuneglue-Audiomap project. In January 2007, Last.fm was nominated for Best Website at the NME Awards.
CBS acquisition and redesign (2007–2009) At the end of April 2007, rumours surfaced regarding negotiations between CBS and Last.fm, indicating that CBS intended to acquire Last.fm for approximately £225 million ($449 million ). In May 2007, it was announced that Channel 4 Radio would broadcast a weekly show called "Worldwide Chart," reflecting the listening habits of Last.fm users worldwide. On 30 May 2007, it was revealed that Last.fm had been acquired by CBS for £140 million, with Last.fm's current management team remaining in place. In July 2008, the "new generation" Last.fm was launched, featuring a completely new layout, color scheme, and several new features, alongside the removal of some old ones. However, this redesign was met with dissatisfaction among some users, who complained about the "unappealing and non-user-friendly layout," bugs, and slow performance. A CBS press release credited the redesign with generating a 20% increase in the site's traffic.
Last.fm debuted Portishead's album Third on 21 April 2008, a week before its release. It was made available for free streaming on the website, attracting 327,000 listeners in 24 hours. It was the first time Last.fm made an album available before its release.
On 22 February 2009, TechCrunch reported that "[the] RIAA asked social music service Last.fm for data about its users' listening habits to find individuals with unreleased tracks on their computers. And Last.fm, which is owned by CBS, allegedly handed the data over to the RIAA." This led to several public statements from both Last.fm and TechCrunch, with Last.fm denying that it had shared any personal data with the RIAA. The request was reportedly prompted by the leak of U2's then-unreleased album No Line on the Horizon and its subsequent widespread distribution through peer-to-peer file sharing services such as BitTorrent.
Three months later, on 22 May 2009, TechCrunch reported that CBS, the parent company of Last.fm, had handed over the data. Last.fm once again denied this allegation, asserting that CBS could not have provided the data without Last.fm's knowledge.
Changes to streaming and access on other platforms (2009–2011) On 24 March 2009, Last.fm announced a change in its free streaming policy. According to the blog post, "[...] In the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany, nothing will change. In all other countries, listening to Last.fm Radio will soon require a subscription of €3.00 per month." This change took effect on 22 April 2009. The announcement sparked a wave of disappointment among users, leading to a decline in data submissions, refusal to update signatures or avatars, and even account deletions.
The original founders, Felix Miller, Martin Stiksel, and Richard Jones, left the company in the summer of 2009.
On 11 September 2009, CBS Radio announced that Last.fm programming would be available for the first time on four major-market FM stations via their HD Radio multicasts. This included KCBS-HD2 in Los Angeles, KITS-HD3 in San Francisco, WWFS-HD2 in New York City, and WXRT-HD3 in Chicago. The programming featured music aggregated from Last.fm's user-generated weekly music charts, as well as live performances and interviews from Last.fm studios in New York City, and debuted on 5 October.
In May 2010, Last.fm launched a personalised guide to music festivals, which made recommendations based on a user's listening history. In July 2011, they launched dedicated festival mobile apps for iOS and Android.
The ability to listen to custom radio stations, such as "personal tag radio" and "loved tracks radio," was withdrawn on 17 November 2010. This change provoked an angry response among users. Last.fm stated that the move was due to licensing reasons. The change meant that a tag radio stream would now include all music tagged as such, rather than just that tagged by individual users, effectively broadening the number of tracks that could be streamed under any one tag set.
Website and desktop application redesigns (2012–2013) In March 2012, Last.fm was breached by hackers, resulting in the compromise of more than 43 million user accounts. The full extent of the breach, along with its connection to similar attacks against Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Myspace during the same timeframe, was not confirmed until August 2016. The passwords were protected using an outdated, unsalted MD5 hash. Last.fm informed users of the attack in June 2012.
On 14 February 2012, Last.fm announced the launch of a new beta desktop client for public testing. The new scrobbler was subsequently released for all users on 15 January 2013.
On 12 July 2012, Last.fm announced a new website redesign in public beta, inviting user feedback from participants in the testing phase. The redesign officially went live for all users on 2 August 2012.
While technology websites received the redesign positively, many users expressed dissatisfaction with the changes on the website's forum.
On 19 June 2012, Last.fm launched Last.fm Originals, a new website featuring exclusive performances and interviews with various musical artists.
On 13 December 2012, it was announced that Last.fm would discontinue its radio service after January 2013 for subscribers in all countries except the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil. Additionally, radio in the desktop client would require a subscription in the US, UK, and Germany, although the website radio would remain free in those countries.
End of radio streaming and redesign (2014–2026) In January 2014, the website announced on-demand integration with Spotify and introduced a new YouTube-powered radio player. With the introduction of the YouTube player, the standard radio service became a subscriber-only feature.
On 26 March 2014, Last.fm announced that it would discontinue its streaming radio service on 28 April 2014. In a statement, the site indicated that the decision was made to "focus on improving scrobbling and recommendations".
On 15 April 2015, Last.fm released a subscriber-exclusive beta version of a new website redesign. Digital Spy described user reactions on the site's forums during the week of the redesign as "universally negative".
In 2016, Music Manager was discontinued, and music uploaded to the site by musicians and record labels became inaccessible. After the integration with Spotify, these tracks could still be played and downloaded where the option was available; however, following the change, artists themselves were unable to access their songs in the Last.fm catalog.
The website experienced a slight revival during the COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in 2020, linked to its popularity within music communities on the communication platform Discord. Last.fm celebrated its twentieth anniversary in 2022. Third-party developers have created programs that integrate users' listening statistical data with Discord, including a popular bot from the Netherlands that has over 400,000 total users.
Independence (2026–present) On 27 May 2026, Last.fm announced on its support forum that it was now an independent company, and would keep its same team. The announcement stated that no changes would be made to user accounts or data.
On June 25, 2026, Last.fm announced that they would be cracking down on accounts that were accused of botting listens. This change came as they received complaints about accounts logging so many listens that it wouldn't be possible for a human to hear every song they logged even if they listened 24 hours a day. This move received criticism from fans of the K-pop group BTS, who viewed it as being directed at them.
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