There comes a time, probably when you have heard James Blunt for the thirteenth time in the space of a couple of hours, that you start wondering if there is a better way to discover new music that you might like. Fortunately there is an answer, an answer that has been around for some time now it is last.fm which offers you the chance to discover new artists that you might like based on your existing taste.

You can do this in two main ways, the first is to link up you music player on the PC to the last.fm servers, this will send back the track you are listening to (Amarok is perfect for this job). The second is to download their audio player, which works on Linux, Mac and Windows and tell it to play artists that are similar to an artist you like, you can then click a button to say if you like or dislike a song.

Once you start submitting data, the last.fm engine will start adapting to your tastes and gradually the recommendations will improve in quality. As an added bonus the tracks you are listening to are made available on the web for people to see (so everyone will know how bad your taste is).

The whole system seems to work very well and you do get some good tracks to listen to. I have noticed only one problem so far - it can end up costing you a bit! The site itself is very cheap, free to use in basic mode, but I have so far ended up buying two CDs and downloading a track in the few days since I started using it properly! Maybe I should go back to commercial radio and James Blunt songs - then I definately won't be tempted to buy any CDs.