A few people have asked how I got the list of songs on the right from Audioscrobbler (now last.fm), so I figured I’d put the script up, explain it once, and save myself a few minutes.

First, you need the XML from Audioscrobbler. I have a cron job set up to download mine every 5 minutes. I keep the XML locally, just in case Audioscrobbler is slow; I don’t want my site to consequently be slow. Here’s what my cron entry looks like. You will have to modify the paths accordingly for your server. Also, replace ‘USERNAME’ with your Audioscrobbler username.

*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/wget -O /path/to/your/recent.xml “http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/rdf/history/USERNAME” > /dev/null 2>&1

Next, you should grab the ParseXML class (linked below) that I got .. somewhere .. I don’t remember where, and there’s no information in the file. It will parse the XML that you will get from Audioscrobbler. While you’re saving files, pull the PHP file down that uses this class to parse the XML. That file will need to be edited to account for the path to the XML file, as well as your audioscrobbler username.

parsexml.php (right-click, save as)
listening.php (right-click, save as)

Put both of these in the same directory on your server. You can either include the php code from listening.php in your files, or run it by itself. Feel free to edit the HTML that it outputs .. it was what I needed for mine, but yours will most likely require a different formatting.

This was written pretty quickly, so if you have any problems or questions, comment here and I’ll try to clarify as soon as I can.