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.

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.

:)