Last.fm Announces "Best Of 2008"

Last.fm has announced its "Best of 2008" lists, detailing this year's most popular artists, albums and songs of the year based on the Last.fm community's listening habits. Sponsored by AT&T, the "Best of 2008" draws on unique Last.fm data, including the listening history of the Last.fm community over the past 11 months, to give a real look at the musicians who made the biggest impact on music fans in 2008.

Coldplay topped both the Top Albums list and Top Tracks list with the "Viva La Vida" album and its title track, which received over 3 million listens since it was released in June. With over 398,000 Last.fm fans, Brooklyn-based MGMT's debut album "Oracular Spectacular" took the number one slot on the Top Artists list, which only includes artists who released their debut album this year.

Martin Stiksel, Last.fm Co-Founder, said: "Unlike other lists based on editor's picks or polls, our "Best of 2008" list is a true reflection of what music fans around the world have been listening to this year. Thanks to our Scrobbler technology, which can track users' listening on media players like iTunes and the iPod — and is now a part of many other music platforms including Songbird, Hype Machine, Blip.fm — we receive information on what people are listening to all over the world at the rate of about 650 songs per second. It's this huge amount of listening data which drives our recommendations and enables us to produce this truly definitive end of year list."

The site's community now has over 25 million users worldwide (source: Omniture), providing the music entertainment platform with the largest global database of online music behavior. Last.fm uses audio fingerprinting technology to identify individual pieces of music scrobbled by its community. As a result, Last.fm has information on over 43 million distinct pieces of music from more than 12 million artists, giving the site an unparalleled insight into listening trends on a macro and micro level.

Music fans can also log onto Last.fm to access a free streaming radio station showcasing artists and songs from the year-end lists.

The complete "Best of 2008" list includes:

Best Artist (artists who have released their debut album this year)

1. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
2. The Ting Tings – We Started Nothing
3. Sara Bareilles – Little Voice
4. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
5. Katy Perry – One Of The Boys
6. The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement
7. Foals – Antidotes
8. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
9. Does It Offend You, Yeah? – You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into
10. Santogold – Santogold

Best Album

1. Coldplay – Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
2. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular
3. Portishead – Third
4. Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I-IV
5. The Ting Tings – We Started Nothing
6. The Kooks – Konk
7. Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs
8. Hot Chip – Made In The Dark
9. Jack Johnson – Sleep Through The Static
10. Sigur Rós – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

Best Track

1. Coldplay – "Viva La Vida"
2. Coldplay – Violet Hill
3. MGMT – Time To Pretend
4. MGMT – Electric Feel
5. Coldplay – Life In Technicolour
6. Coldplay – Cemeteries of London
7. Katy Perry – I Kissed A Girl
8. Coldplay – 42
9. Coldplay – Strawberry Swing
10. MGMT – Kids