So, now that AMG has made itself COMPLETELY FUCKING USELESS, what is the best web alternative??

I like AMG for their criticism, even though it was all too clear they hand artists over to people who are predisposed to like them. I have to say, Heather Phares is a fine writer.

so, the answer is: Pitchfork!

Real answer: I have no idea.

Hi Dan!

Hi Chuck!

...You can use amazon.com for tracklist and release dates, can't you? And they post the AMG reviews sometimes.

>>Is it just a coincidence that Ned Raggett went on "vacation" just as AMG decided to be so "shitty". Hmmmm...Let's just blame Ned.

Otherwise, I usually have no difficulties with just googling "(band name) discography".

I guess AMG's partnership with Microsoft failed to consider that MS couldn't be arsed to develop an updated Mac version of IE. Idjits.

"Is it just a coincidence that Ned Raggett went on "vacation" just as AMG decided to be so "shitty". Hmmmm...Let's just blame Ned."

Better yet, we could start a "How Much Do We Miss Ned" thread. But then, if it died with no posts it'd be sad for him. :-(

I've grown sceptical of things that say 'You'll love our new ' since Melbourne's wonderful revolutionary new trams turned out to be so incredibly shit.

discogs is pretty cool.

It's the standard of living in networked computing, a cover-yer-ass approach adopted as an industry fob to all problems. "We'll fix it in the next update." Of course, what you are not told is that the next update will be just as buggy, but in different and interesting ways. And that it will probably break things that aren't already broken on your PC.

So refusing to download more "stuff" is not an unreasonable strategy.

What exactly wasn't working that convinced them to fuck with what they had?

That's not the right question. Many times it's not a matter of what's not working but a matter of changing things just for the sake of the appearance of progress. It sounds stupid but it's true. You get people at companies like this and after awhile they're sitting around worrying about how to attack the attention of the media, or how to goose the image or furnish the impression that they are moving forward with !NEW! !IMPORTANT! !THINGS! And so a radical change is made just for the sake of this and it busts everything.

Essentially, I don't see an answer to what you're currently doing. The information is always going to be scattered piecemeal across the net. It is the nature of the sphere and it's not restricted just to pop music. It extends pretty much into all fields of endeavor. Information is scattered higgledy-piggledy across the network and
you have to rely on your wits -- or Google fu -- to find it.

That's computers, the essence of distributed "knowledge," "knowledge" having a very elastic definition.

It's a limited solution, but MP3.com syndicates much of its current content from AMG, so it may have enough of what you regularly look for without the five-clicks-to-get-there issue. Unfortunately, AMG appears to have made the decision that it's worth alienating its most hardcore users in the name of being able to tout a fivefold increase in banner ad displays.

-- yer intern emeritus

I'd love to pull up an album, and see who produced it, who was the sidemen, etc. Click on the link on the side for trivia or alternate versions. It just seems that there's so many albums and artists. I know that there's a lot of movies, too, but still.

That's why I don't know how you could do it reasonably. That's a lot of server space.

Still. To be able to enter two people working together like you can now with the actors except with guitarists and producers? Man.

I mean, WHAT THE FUCK???

I pasted a sample from a current auction:

Description

Secaucus

Stock Photo

Item Specifics - Music: CDs

Artist:
The Wrens
Release Date:
Feb 27, 1996

Format:
CD
Record Label:
Grass Records

Genre:
Rock
UPC:
601501302121

Sub-Genre:
Punk
Album Type:
Full-Length CD

Condition:
Used

Portions of this page Copyright 1948 - 2004 Muze Inc. All rights reserved.
Additional information

Additional Information about Secaucus
Portions of this page Copyright 1948 - 2004 Muze Inc. All rights reserved.

Track listing

1. Yellow Number Three
2. Built In Girls
3. Surprise, Honeycomb
4. Rest Your Head
5. Won't Get Too Far
6. Joneses Rule Of Sport
7. Dance The Midwest
8. Still Complaining
9. Hats Off To Marriage, Baby
10. Jane Fakes A Hug
11. Counted On Sweetness
12. I've Made Enough Friends
13. Luxury
14. Indie 500
15. Safe & Comfortable
16. Destruction / Drawn
17. I Married Sonja
18. I'll Mind You
19. It's Not Getting Any Good

Details

Distributor:
BMG

Recording type:
Studio

Recording mode:
Stereo

SPAR Code:
n/a

Album notes

The Wrens include: Sett (vocals, bass).

Editorial reviews

...just on the punk side of the `Dazed And Confused' soundtrack, the Edgar Winter Group hovering around Girls Against Boys...
Option  (07/01/1996)

7 (out of 10) - ...uncrowned kings of Power Slop...blend the tightly-controlled dementia of the Pixies to the slippery clatter of Pavement and, more often than not, end up with the warped high-school innocence of Weezer...
NME  (03/09/1996)

...just on the punk side of the `Dazed And Confused' soundtrack, the Edgar Winter Group hovering around Girls Against Boys...NME (3/9/96, p.44) - 7 (out of 10) - ...uncrowned kings of Power Slop...blend the tightly-controlled dementia of the Pixies to the slippery clatter of Pavement and, more often than not, end up with the warped high-school innocence of Weezer...
Option  (07/01/1996)

Not only is it literally impossible to read, btu if I click to any genres, my entire machine freezes!

I imagine this sort of thing can't be easy.

obv. critcs' sites might qualify too.

why the tabs? and why does my computer freeze everytime i use the tabs. and i hate flash for a functional website. and its confusing. bah.

So refusing to download more "stuff" is not an unreasonable strategy.

Yeah, get the ten CD install of Free Bltfzpk 5.4x. Don't forget the Excrement 01.1 action web accelerator add-ons, people. And you'll need the CrummyFree compiler, although that usually comes with Bltfzpk.

Support is excellent.

It's the Excrement action web accelerator add-on. There are still a few showstoppers in it.

Thanks! I knew there had to be an easy answer to this predicament.

They could optimise a 'bot and a web front end for that sort of data collection, but maybe there should be outside-committee non-GNU site design. And yet it's more their free spirited attitude that is valuable.

anyway, the Linux _servers_ would do this work. You'd still get the page easily in IE and Mozilla. Nothing to install browser side (cf: AMG's new site -- i presume it doesn't install anything except a cooky, but whatever AMG's doing between clients and servers it sure takes an exceptional time).

- fuck computers and shit

The computer virus that thought it was human asks a question.

Happenings ten years time ago:

www.soci.niu.edu/~crypt/other/vcl.htm

They could optimise a 'bot and a web front end for that sort of data collection, but maybe there should be outside-committee non-GNU site design.

"Oot-greet." -- Carbuncle, "Don Martin Steps Out."

It's pretty much only for electronic stuff but VERY complete and pretty accurate. THey are working on Hip-Hop as well.

Exactly. Once more I would like to suggest (as I did on the other thread) that people simply do not use the site. Please.

thanks.

I'm sure AMG is quaking at the thought of losing all 32 of you. meanwhile, everyone else clicks an extra three times to get to the info they want without complaint and site traffic explodes.

but when apple comes out with a new ipod that has a bad interface design, people drop their books, praise the manna from heaven, and spend all they have to eat it up.

(I'll still use it occasionally, just not nearly as much as I used to, since it's more of a chore now.)

Wait a minute, totally fecking critch is telling ME to grow up?

adj.
Made to resemble another, usually superior material: imitation fur.

seriously, AMG is not meant to be a video game -- i actually feel slightly patronised by the big budget rock star rollouts as i'm usually merely tracking humble jazz connections -- the site's new glamour looks pretty puerile to me -- particularly flash animation of "muso in motion" -- reminds of that kids TV program where the 6 million dollar man goes slow-motion whenever doing something cybernetic

but the site is, for basic information gathering purposes, still free, and anyone who feels like AMG "owes" them something for whatever stupid decisions they make in the interface are just as stupid themselves.

it was fantastic.

I'd been under the impression that their "real" business model had always been syndicating their content to CDNow, Barnes & Noble, MP3.com, ArtistDirect, and so on; as well as publishing the hard-copy volumes of their bios & reviews. Anything they made off ad impressions was, I thought, icing on the cake. Either I was grossly wrong in this presumption, or they decided that a cake made entirely of icing is a value-add.

Anyway, I was gonna say that the comment above reminds me of people who complain about Abu Ghraib torture accusations by pretending "it was just a couple silly soldiers putting panties on people's heads." (In other words, anybody who would take the time to read all the complaints above would realize that the problems with using AMG these days are a lot more serious than "clicking an extra three times.")

I think Karl76 has a point. A big part of the fun of being a music junkie (at least for me, though I sympathize with Chuck's situation) is just tracking things down whether it be facts or records. It's been said the internet has taken away a lot of the thrill that used to come from searching through boxes and boxes of records and stumbling upon that gem you never thought you'd find. Now it's usually incredibly simple and quick to find what you're looking for.
There are pros and cons to this.

I'm beginning to look forward to typing "artist discography" into a search engine - maybe it will lead me to interesting fan sites that may have taken more care with details than AMG would have. There may be as yet unseen benefits to be reaped from this approach.

I must disagree with critch that it's stupid to be outraged - particularly if you are one of those who's computer freezes for instance. I don't feel AMG "owes" me anything, but certainly I was angry at the change and the indisputably bumbling stupidity of it.

I'm sure AMG is quaking at the thought of losing all 32 of you

snarky!

I do agree with this, by the way -- AMG took a lot of mystery out of learning about music; it made it way too easy to "find similar bands," etc. So just like I kinda think the world would be a better place if downloading songs would suddenly one day become COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE and people had to return to used record stores (easy for me to say, as somebody who has never downloaded a song in his life), it could very easily be argued that, in the long run, it's a *good* thing that AMG so ineptly shot itself in the face. But in the short term, looking up info on deservedly marginal bands I don't give a shit about for, say, Pazz and Jop Poll or Voice listings purposes, it makes my job a *lot* harder. And I doubt I'm the only one. But yeah, it's a free service; we were totally spoiled before. Obviously. That doesn't mean I can't hope the website dies a long painful death now.

the other big problem, and this can be easily solved, is the "read more" issue. given that each bit of information seems to be parcelled out to its own discrete page, there's really no reason for the "read more" function. especially since text is the least bandwidth-intensive of all the site's features. also i think the separate tabs for "compilations" etc. are only necessary for artists like elvis with a huge discography. for some like, say, robert wyatt, the whole discography can be rather easily contained on one page. i don't know if it would entail to much reworking of the site's code to make it function differently for artists with different discographies. but it's my recommendation.

i hope someone at AMG is reading this.

on the whole i think the site has made big improvements in just under a week, and i expect it to continue to improve such that the comments above will seem a bit extreme.

i should try it in mozilla and see what happens, but i don't have a PC with mozilla handy.

i agree with what you say within the parentheses, chuck, but your analogy to Abu Gharib is, um, definitely not what I expected.

and i have been lucky enough to not be so dedicated to a browser that happens to be horribly incompatible with NU-AMG.. so my outrage comment may have been a little too extreme, bimble.. i'll admit.

i'm not actually suggesting this happen but if people like chuck want something like a professional-quality database, well, most of those things cost money.

There was a deafening roar of disapproval from the blog-o-sphere. See this and also this and also this, for starters.

I kinda think the world would be a better place if downloading songs would suddenly one day become COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE and people had to return to used record stores (easy for me to say, as somebody who has never downloaded a song in his life)

Also easy to say as someone who doesn't have to pay for, oh, i'll guess, 94.9% of the music he listens to.

okay, back to bitching.

I just now used it to check something about the Time, and the only thing factually accurate about the summary was the spelling of their names.

>How much would it cost if I just want Jackson 5 or K-Tel type compilation LPs? <

$1.00, if you go to the right place. And if it's much more than that, you should go somewhere else.

AMG fucks that sort of shit up all the time.

Sorry to continue this off topic convo but...

I agree that it is more fun. But I will also say that there is no way in hell that i would own (ie. i bought) Big & Rich or Montgomery Gentry without having downloaded them and heard them for a month or more before said purchase. On the other end of the spectrum, there is a hell of a lot of feces (actual feces!) that I *would* have bought that sucked cuz I didn't get a chance to download and judge in advance.

Maybe not

Exactly what I was going to say. I go there way, way, less than I used to. (Though more than I did the week they changed, I guess.
The site has improved slightly since, but it is still not a fraction as useful as it used to be, back before all the idiot changes.)

i'm waiting for you to split off with www.allraggett.com

fuck them. really, totally utterly fuck them.

That hurt, godammit. No way in hell am i going back with whatever pages I might *also* have loaded at the current time, with all the associated cookies, flash bits whatever just to see if it maybe doesn't crash within 30 seconds anymore and lose my whole browsing session.

I've used mp3.com a bit, but it's hardly any sort of replacement for what I liked about amg - the all-on-one-page 'related artists' info, the ability to see which album was generally rated the best 'first buy' etc (mp3.com seems to show everything as *****)

I HOPE THEY GO BUST.

p.s. fuck them

at least that's how it is for me. this happens to me a good 35 percent of the time. and i'm using a current version of IE on a new PC, with a T-1 connection. so somehow i don't think the problem's on my end.

i could say more about how fucked up the whole tab system is -- not just that it exists, but the way they've coded it -- but then i might explode.

Different strokes, m'friend. I'm addicted to glaze.

and a polite and composed complaint it was too.

grrr.

(why u break heart all time?)

Tell it to my face. Next Tuesday, at the Di FAP for _The Apple_ and _Xanadu_ at the New Beverly Cinema. Which you are attending. No exceptions.

http://www.zvuki.ru/

heh.

:)