This article needs to be updated.(July 2024) |
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Type of site | Online database for music albums, artists and songs; reviews and biographies |
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Available in | English |
Owner | RhythmOne (since 2015) [1] |
Created by | Michael Erlewine |
URL | allmusic.com |
Commercial | Yes |
Registration | Optional |
Launched | 1991 | (as All Music Guide)
Current status | Online |
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. [2] [3] AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne.
AllMusic was launched as All-Music Guide by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". [3] Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. [4] In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded All Music Guide with a goal to create an open-access database that included every recording "since Enrico Caruso gave the industry its first big boost". [2]
The first All Music Guide, published in 1992, was a 1,200-page reference book, packaged with a CD-ROM, titled All Music Guide: The Best CDs, Albums & Tapes: The Expert's Guide to the Best Releases from Thousands of Artists in All Types of Music. [5] Its first online version, in 1994, was a text-based Gopher site. [2] [6] It moved to the World Wide Web as web browsers became more user-friendly. [3]
Erlewine hired a database engineer, Vladimir Bogdanov, to design the All Music Guide framework, and recruited his nephew, writer Stephen Thomas Erlewine, to develop editorial content. In 1993, Chris Woodstra joined the staff as an engineer. A "record geek" who had written for alternative weeklies and fanzines, his main qualification was an "encyclopedic knowledge of music". [3] 1,400 subgenres of music were created, a feature that became central to the site's utility. In a 2016 article in Tedium, Ernie Smith wrote: "AllMusic may have been one of the most ambitious sites of the early-internet era—and it's one that is fundamental to our understanding of pop culture. Because, the thing is, it doesn't just track reviews or albums. It tracks styles, genres, and subgenres, along with the tone of the music and the platforms on which the music is sold. It then connects that data together, in a way that can intelligently tell you about an entire type of music, whether a massive genre like classical, or a tiny one like sadcore." [7]
In 1996, seeking to further develop its web-based businesses, Alliance Entertainment Corp. bought All Music from Erlewine for a reported $3.5 million. He left the company after its sale. [3] Alliance filed for bankruptcy in 1999, and its assets were acquired by Ron Burkle's Yucaipa Equity Fund. [4]
In 1999, All Music relocated from Big Rapids to Ann Arbor, where the staff expanded from 12 to 100 people. [3] By February of that year, 350,000 albums and two million tracks had been cataloged. All Music had published biographies of 30,000 artists, 120,000 record reviews and 300 essays written by "a hybrid of historians, critics and passionate collectors". [8] [9]
In late 2007, AllMusic was purchased for $72 million by TiVo Corporation (known as Macrovision at the time of the sale, and as Rovi from 2009 until 2016). [10]
In 2012, AllMusic removed all of Bryan Adams' info from the site per a request from the artist. [11]
In 2015, AllMusic was purchased by BlinkX, later known as RhythmOne. [12] [1]
The AllMusic database is powered by a combination of MySQL and MongoDB. [13]
The All Media Network produced the All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide (at first released as The Experts' Guide), [3] which includes a series of publications about various music genres. It was followed by the Required Listening series, and Annual guides. Vladimir Bogdanov is the president and the main editor of the series. [14]
In August 2007, PC Magazine included AllMusic in its "Top 100 Classic Websites" list. [16] [2]
Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard rock music was produced by the Kinks, the Who, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Vanilla Fudge, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience. In the late 1960s, bands such as Blue Cheer, the Jeff Beck Group, Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin, Golden Earring, Steppenwolf, Grand Funk, Free, and Deep Purple also produced hard rock.
Swamp blues is a type of Louisiana blues that developed in the Black communities of Southwest Louisiana in the 1950s. It incorporates influences from other genres, particularly zydeco and Cajun. Its most successful proponents include Slim Harpo and Lightnin' Slim, who enjoyed national rhythm and blues hits.
Electric blues is blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, which differed from earlier, predominantly acoustic-style blues. By the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a little longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became widely used in electric blues.
Richard Shindell is an American folk singer, songwriter, producer, and musician. Shindell grew up in Port Washington, New York, and now lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with his wife, Lila Caimari, a university professor, and their children.
Sylvia Jane Kirby, known mononymously as Sylvia, is an American country music and country pop singer and songwriter. Her biggest hit, was her single "Nobody" in 1982. It reached number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 5 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, number 9 on the Cashbox Top 100, and number 1 on the Billboard Country Singles chart. The song earned her a gold record certification and a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. Her other country chart hits include "Drifter", "Fallin' in Love", "Tumbleweed" and "Snapshot". She was named Female Vocalist of the Year by the Academy of Country Music for 1982. She is also credited with making the first "concept" music video clip to air on Country Music Television (CMT), with "The Matador".
Roots rock is a genre of rock music that looks back to rock's origins in folk, blues and country music. It is seen as responses to the perceived excesses of the dominant psychedelic and the developing progressive rock. Because roots music (Americana) is often used to mean folk and world musical forms, roots rock is sometimes used in a broad sense to describe any rock music that incorporates elements of this music.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine is an American music critic and former senior editor for the online music database AllMusic. He is the author of multiple artist biographies and record reviews for AllMusic, as well as a freelance writer, occasionally contributing liner notes.
RhythmOne plc, a subsidiary of Nexxen, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel.
Rock Bottom is the second solo album by former Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt. It was released on 26 July 1974 by Virgin Records. The album was produced by Pink Floyd's drummer Nick Mason, and was recorded following a 1973 accident which left Wyatt a paraplegic. He enlisted musicians including Ivor Cutler, Hugh Hopper, Richard Sinclair, Laurie Allan, Mike Oldfield and Fred Frith in the recording.
Harvest for the World is the fourteenth studio album released by The Isley Brothers on their T-Neck imprint on May 29, 1976.
New Orleans blues is a subgenre of blues that developed in and around the city of New Orleans, influenced by jazz and Caribbean music. It is dominated by piano and saxophone, but also produced guitar bluesmen.
All Music Guide to Jazz: The Definitive Guide to Jazz is a non-fiction book that is an encyclopedic referencing of jazz music compiled under the direction of All Media Guide. The first edition, All Music Guide to Jazz: the Best CDs, Albums & Tapes, appeared in 1994 and was edited by Ron Wynn with Michael Erlewine and Vladimir Bogdanov. The book's fourth edition was released on November 27, 2002, and was edited by Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra and Stephen Thomas Erlewine.
Arnim LeRoy Fox, better known as CurlyFox, was an American old-time and country fiddler, singer and country musician.
Conference of the Birds is an album by the Dave Holland Quartet, recorded on 30 November 1972 and released on ECM the following year—Holland's debut as bandleader and fourth project for the label. The quartet features alto saxophonist Anthony Braxton, tenor saxophonist Sam Rivers, and percussionist Barry Altschul.
Totally Crushed Out! is the second studio album by American alternative rock band that dog.. It was released on July 18, 1995, on DGC Records.
Duke Levine is an American guitarist, known primarily for his rock and country music playing as a session musician.
Blue Serge is an album by jazz baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff, and released by Capitol Records in 1956. It was recorded on March 14 and 16, 1956 at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, California.
Boston Blow–Up! is an album by jazz baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff. Capitol Records released the album in 1955. It was recorded on April 4 and 5, 1955 at Capitol Studios in New York City. Stan Kenton produced the album as part of his "Kenton Presents" series.
AllMovie is an online database with information about films, television programs, television series, and screen actors. As of 2015, AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne.
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