The Surly Teabag Consumer Report on the Last.fm subscription

So I wanted to play a particular album. It looked like it was playable from last.fm (under their current you-can-play-any-streamable-track-3-times-for-free policy) but that seemed to entail clicking each and every one of those little play buttons. I wanted to stream a continuous set of songs so I could work without interruption. So I anted up the 3 bucks for a one-month subscription to last.fm. My conclusion is that it is worth it, but first some details:

The last.fm playlist creator has a very clicky interface. What I wanted was just to click on something near the album and put the whole thing in a playlist. But there seems to be no option for that. So you've got to find every song you want to hear and click on it a couple of times to get it on the playlist. At least dialog boxes can be dismissed by hitting the return key. Before you can play a playlist, it needs at least 45 playable tracks by 15 different artists, so be prepared to do a lot of clicking.

Now the good news. It is freaking awesome: I discovered a bunch of new songs that I loved, so I went out and bought them. This is probably the most efficient way to track down those elusive tracks that I want to listen to over and over. Thank you, last.fm.