Weekly top tracks on Last.fm: New Gorillaz tracks get early airplay

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Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" and Ke$ha's "TiK ToK" remain the top tracks among users of Last.fm, the internet radio station that lets users in more than 200 countries listen to tracks in the site's music library. New on the week's charts, which measure listeners from February 28 to March 7, were several tracks off the Gorillaz album Plastic Beach, officially released on March 8.

When the Gorillaz album Plastic Beach became available to stream at guardian.co.uk one week before its release, the new tracks leapt into the Last.fm charts. These charts rely on data not only from Last.fm but from hundreds of music sites, including iTunes, Spotify, and The Hype Machine, that use a system called "scrobbling": Once a listener downloads Last.fm, his or her Last.fm library will record any song he or she listens to using a service that "scrobbles." As a result, the charts provide a broad view of what is happening in the music ecosystem.

"Rhinestone Eyes" and "On Melancholy Hill" from Plastic Beach both climbed into the top ten, and all five of Last.fm's most hyped tracks of the week - those whose listener base grew the most - were songs off the Gorillaz album. Now that the tracks are universally available following the album's international release, they are likely to remain in the top ten for weeks to come.

Last.fm's top tracks:

1. Lady Gaga - "Bad Romance" (44,204 listeners)
2. Ke$ha - "TiK ToK" (34,286)
3. Lady Gaga - "Poker Face" (29,384)
4. Gorillaz - "Rhinestone Eyes" (28,257) (new)
5. Owl City - "Fireflies" (28,124) (-1)
6. Lady Gaga - "Paparazzi" (27,037) (-1)
7. The xx - "Crystalised" (25,343) (-1)
8. Muse - "Uprising" (24,782) (+2)
9. Gorillaz - "On Melancholy Hill" (24,608) (new)
10. Kings of Leon - "Sex On Fire" (24,263) (-3)

Last.fm claims more than 30 million active users based in more than 200 countries. Available in 12 languages, the site's radio service is free for users in the UK, the US, Ireland, and Germany, elsewhere, a subscription costs €3.00 per month.

http://www.last.fm