Welcome to Last.fm’s Best of 2011, the only countdown based on the music you played last year.

From the biggest artists of 2011 to the new bands you’ve discovered along the way, we’ve got it covered. All that plus stats on some of the biggest stories of the year.

This year’s chart was compiled by looking at scrobbles for albums released between 1st January and 31st December 2011. The Top Artist chart is based on how many of you played particular artists, while the New Discoveries chart only features artists that weren’t scrobbled before 2011.

We left out live albums, greatest hits collections, EP’s and singles, and you can filter each chart by location and some specially selected tags to find a chart that’s right for you.

So sit back and settle into 2012 with a look at the biggest bands of the last twelve months.

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Welcome to Last.fm’s Best of 2010, the hottest and most popular artists of the year based on your scrobbles.

This year’s chart was compiled by looking at scrobbles for albums released between 1st October 2009 and 31st October 2010. We left out live albums, greatest hits collections, EP’s and singles and pulled them together into the lovely list you see here now.

For every album in the list we looked up the most scrobbled tracks and the month-by-month plays, as well as checking with our playlinks partners to find places you can listen to the albums in full.

So fetch a cuppa, get comfortable, and get ready for this year’s chart: the most popular music of 2010, based on your scrobbles.

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