Slashdot Mirror

Also, I'm surprised I haven't seen more mentions of All Music, which has reviews and links to related artists and stuff like that.

• Jimmy McGriff
• The Doors
• Deep Purple

What did Gnod tell me? I should find and check out the music of "Led Zeppelin". Clicking on related bands, it listed everything from The Who to Green Day to Nine Inch Nails. Talk about running the gamut.

Maybe somehow Gnod can associate bands together by bands that open for each other and musicians that have changed from one band to another (that info should all be online somewhere, like allmusic .

Sites like Epitonic and Parasol have steaming audio and are not 'radio' per se. Parasol is a distributor and Epitonic is a site like MP3.com but with a more condensed selection of signed indie artists (not the myriad of DIY stuff that might be fun to wade through at MP3.com, but since you said google was dense, then this is a valid comment). Epitonic's radio stream is cool because you can listen to what they have programmed or 'walk through' genre, labels etc or create a playlist for the broadcast.

Allmusic is very good at guiding yo to stuff you might like. By checking roots, influences, followers and similar artist of an act that you like you might stumble on some new stuff.

Weblogs, forums... of course.

Then there is the old reliable. Magzines, college radio and record store clerks.

Some of my favorite mags: Magnet, Wire, Signal to Noise and CMJ.

You must have some local college stations... some of them do internet streaming if there is none near you. Local to me (Northampton, MA) there is WAMH and WMUA.

There are a few great record stores that send out new release emails of obscure titles. Also, they have employee lists. I have bought many titles without listen by looking at the employee lists. If 10 people that work in the store say it is great, then it more than likely is. Here are two great stores on each coast: Forced Exposure in Boston (click on "Employee Top 10") & Aquarius Records in San Fran (click on "Favorites" for each employee)... for both sites, sign up for the email updates for weekly new releases.

If anyone is into Free Jazz, check out my site.

New reviews and news: Pitchfork

Good, but specialised reviews: Absorb and Urban Smarts

Also, check out what label releases your favourite artists, and visit their site to check out other artists/albums they've released. This doesn't work for EMI or Virgin, but if you like Aphex Twin, try other Warp Records artists (or Rephlex). If you're partial to Pavement try other Matador artists, etc etc etc.

For basic help with "similar artist" type stuff, I'd recommend AMG's All Music Guide. I've spent hours randomly browsing their Music Styles section and cross referencing artists I like. Their search engine is pretty crummy and they do occasionally hit their simultanious user quota but on the whole, this is where I go for artist and album information and exploration.

from zines to msg boards to slashdot similar thing to online stores to even online encyclopedias... there's a variety of information sources...here's just a few of the ones i know.

the fake matador bb
i love music
aquarius records
pitchfork
pataphysics research lab
mideheaven mailorder
all music guide

m.

As a music writer, I find the All Music Guide to be indispensable. Ignore the "similar/related" albums section (on pages about albums, not about bands); it appears to be randomly generated. However, a lot of artist pages (the better known ones at least) have a "related artists" section and those are often at least in the ballpark. Search for someone you like at AMG, get yourself a good p2p client, and then download a song by each of the "related artists" from your AMG search.

If you're into obscure stuff and have a hard time finding it on a p2p, try to figure out what label they're on and then check the label's site... a lot of labels have sample mp3s by their artists these days. There are also scads of mailing lists out there devoted to specific genres. Oh, and Pitchfork is another good music site.

Two years ago, I just knew about Steely Dan. By browing this site's "similar artists" and "worked with" links for them, I found out about a lot of jazz/fusion acts out there!

There used to be a site that let you enter a list of groups you like, and it listed more spiraling out (inner being most like your sound) - and in one direction was music more in the mainstream but with similar sound, and the other direction spiraled out list of bands not so well known.

I think it was called Firefly. unfortunatly, the site is no longer.

However, here is a very comprehensive site that has a similar feature (but only for one particular band at a time):

http://www.allmusic.com/

Find a band, then check the "Similar/Related" tab.

Allmusic.com

They have many reviews, essays and maps of how a style of music came to be. I enjoy being able to look up a song and hunt down what album it was on. They seem to be a one stop answer for most question on music.

They also have sister sites that are for Games and Movies.

Plus I like to support a company in home state.

I've got a 25 GB MP3 collection, all ripped from my own CDs. Still, even with that much music, I get bored. I've fallen in love with Live365. Has a downloadable Windows streaming client, or works seamlessly with any number of MP3 players (including XMMS). For research, AMG is top freaking notch. I've got a loooong wish list from that site. No one has every detail about every artist who ever was, but these guys have information on some of the most obscure artists I could think of and things about your favorite artists that you may not have known.

The All Music Guide is definitely a good start to find new music. Even the most obscure releases are usually reviewed if they're somewhat interesting. They also show the hilights songs for almost every albums, allowing users to easily retrieve a few good songs from p2p application in order to find out if the cd is worth buying.

But their most useful feature is the way you can easily find similar artists, genre, and easily browse through them.

A must have site for your bookmark :).

Yeah, but, I just don't think Elvis sounds as good when he's been translated to French.

ROFLMAO: I have these visions of Elvis performing "Ca plane pour moi":

Wam! Bam!
Mon chat, splatch
Git sur mon lit
A bouffe sa langue
En buvant dans mon whisky...

People who did French in high school needn't worry: the lyrics are nonsense.

There are probably MP3s and similar nasties floating around the net if you want to hear it. Look for the original (by Plastic Bertrand), or Telex's bizarre cover. Telex did Rock Around The Clock on the same album. It sounds like it was performed by drunk robots...

...laura

Yeah, but, I just don't think Elvis sounds as good when he's been translated to French.

ROFLMAO: I have these visions of Elvis performing "Ca plane pour moi":

Wam! Bam!
Mon chat, splatch
Git sur mon lit
A bouffe sa langue
En buvant dans mon whisky...

People who did French in high school needn't worry: the lyrics are nonsense.

There are probably MP3s and similar nasties floating around the net if you want to hear it. Look for the original (by Plastic Bertrand), or Telex's bizarre cover. Telex did Rock Around The Clock on the same album. It sounds like it was performed by drunk robots...

...laura

WinMX and AudioGalaxy both had chat rooms to discuss anything, including new music. WinMX also has a instant messaging system, and I've come across many great artists through talking to people on it. But, I prefer AllMusic for looking up new music, their "related artists" feature is pretty good.

I don't know why everyone prefers Kazza, or places it at the forefront of any p2p discussion. WinMX is much more configurable and you get great results if you know how to use it. It's like comparing Notepad with vi, sure notpad may be easier to figure out, but it's pretty limited.

Kazza is also full of spyware. I'm constantly pointing this out to friends that run it and are completely unaware of this.

Second:
The Frankenchrist LP and the Party Music CD, with both containing their original album artworks. [53 points per item]
Completely impossible, unless you are me! Frankenchrist originally came with a painting called 'Penis Landscape' by H.R. Giger (you all know Him) that was one of the first PMRC cases that was pulled from production (Which I purchased when I was 12, so I could have won 53 points!). Nice Punk Rock Pop Quiz (please say point number one out loud for me). Thank you.

The researchers were using this CD in their initial studies.

No! We are DeVO!!!

one has to assume that they will cast John Lydon to play Tintin.

When's the next record coming out? After all, it's been 34 years since you did that stirring rendition of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ,..

Punk Backstreet Boys?! Wait; I thought the original Back Street Boys were the punk Back Street Boys, and the new Backstreet Boys were the boyband Backstreet Boys.

Punk Backstreet Boys?! Wait; I thought the original Back Street Boys were the punk Back Street Boys, and the new Backstreet Boys were the boyband Backstreet Boys.

I've always felt the Sex Pistols to be an incredibly overrated band. I'm not a fan of punk to begin with, but I can't really give the Pistols even basic credit for "inventing" the genre... The Monks were doing their sound 10 years before they did, with a slightly different timbre (same minimalistic riffs, same lyrics, but they used a banjo and an organ), and of course there's Iggy & the Stooges. I'm not sure what the hype over the Sex Pistols is all about.

ROWR!!!
Ooh la la!!

They have tonnes of artists I have never heard of, nice descriptions and histories of musical genres, etc... it's a great resource for finding new bands. They also rate and review albums. My only beef is that they seem to focus too much on US releases only, whereas I would love more Canadian content.

I'm currently listening to Fila Brazillia, Zero 7, Royksop, Thievery Corperation and just about any Ninja Tune act. None of them are heavy on promotion and the chances are you won't have heard of any; I heard about them by hearing tracks they have made being played in independant internet radio. Thanks to p2p, I know I like the rest of their stuff. When they play near me, I go along. A couple of them are beginning to get big, again through word of mouth. Strangly, I've noticed that these types of music feature heavilly on TV commercials/background music; I know that if you lived in the UK and I was to play you each of these albums, you would recognize quite a few of the tracks.

It's a taste thing, not thru hatred of the industry. As I said, that came later for me. I just got fed up with commercial radio playing the same crap every hour/on the hour, so I started listening to net radio in work. It sorta moved on from there...

Essentially, the industry has poisoned itself, by getting too greedy. If it wasn't for the constant stream of manufactured "bands", I'm sure commercial music might hold some interest for me. But I can't sit through anymore inane love songs by a bunch of pretty kids who have been trained to sing, aiming their music at emotional pubesant kids. It's like shooting fish in a barrel for the music industry, and it's not music IMO.

Something similar could be found a few years later in the Lips' release of Zaireeka a 4-disc set that is meant to be played simultaneously.
At least that's what popped into my mind when I read this.

Something similar could be found a few years later in the Lips' release of Zaireeka a 4-disc set that is meant to be played simultaneously.
At least that's what popped into my mind when I read this.

this stuff has been done by the French before!

you got a registration card/number if you bought Daft Punk's album Discovery, with which you could sign in on their site, and download a lot of goodies, etc..

bad news, jon-boy, they were first... in 1997!

five years too late to be a first...

this stuff has been done by the French before!

you got a registration card/number if you bought Daft Punk's album Discovery, with which you could sign in on their site, and download a lot of goodies, etc..

bad news, jon-boy, they were first... in 1997!

five years too late to be a first...

Jefferson Airplane guitarist Paul Kantner played some glass harmonica, on the 1983 Planet Earth Rock And Roll Orchestra album- a sort of washed-up hippie supergroup thing, with a bunch of Airplane/Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service/Montrose members playing on it.

Haven't heard it, though the AMG calls it "a science fiction concept album about a commune/rock band eventually fleeing into outer space to escape right-wing oppression."

Well, it's not for Mac, but there's a shareware program called Tag and Rename ( http://www.softpointer.com/tr.htm ) for Win32 will look up a CD's information on FreeDB and then fill in the ID3 tags for you, no problem.

You just need to make sure you have all the album's tracks in one directory and that they're listed in order (it helps if the track number is at the beginning of the filename).
Tag and Rename will also let you manually pick out your album from Allmusic (www.allmusic.com)(in case there's tracks missing, or truncated MP3's) , and then fill out ID3 tags using Allmusic's information (including the album cover!).

You may find the All Music Guide's, Music Styles - Electronica section or the Electronica Music Map useful. You can also get to the music map from the entries for artists and it gives related/similar artists under their entry.

You may find the All Music Guide's, Music Styles - Electronica section or the Electronica Music Map useful. You can also get to the music map from the entries for artists and it gives related/similar artists under their entry.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=C4476

Yeah I'm sure. Why don't you get some taste or at least expand your musical palette and get back to me. allmusicguide

Comprehensive electronic music reference:
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=C4476

Excellent suggestion but... Considering the poster is too lazy to do even a basic search, you might want to give a link to an indroductory essay and the category itself over at AllMusic. Or perhaps you just meant the book itself...

Excellent suggestion but... Considering the poster is too lazy to do even a basic search, you might want to give a link to an indroductory essay and the category itself over at AllMusic. Or perhaps you just meant the book itself...

'Electronic music' is as broad a genre as 'rock'; there are many subgenres, different types of electronic music. I haven't heard Digweed, so I don't know what it sounds like. You might want to look at different subgenres if you're completely new.

I'm not great at grouping music into categories or describing it, so I went to the All Music Guide for the categories and descriptive words in this list. I highly recommend the Guide.

Here's a list of some of my favorites; none of this is the kind of music you'll find at a rave, that's usually called 'dance' or 'rave' I believe, rather than 'techno' or 'ambient.'

Orbital - 'The Middle Of Nowhere,' or 'In Sides.'
Ambient Techno. Smooth, Lush, Ethereal, Reflective, Confident, Trippy, Laid-Back/Mellow, Hypnotic, Clinical, Stylish, Elegant, Soothing.
TMON takes getting used to, it would affect my mood when I listened to it until I'd become familiar with the album.

Propellerheads - 'Decksanddrumsandrockandroll'
Drum n' Bass. Energetic, Boisterous, Rousing, Stylish, Party/Celebratory.
I actually find this album very laid-back.

DJ Shadow - 'Endtroducing...'
Ambient Breakbeat. Ethereal, Somber, Reflective, Reserved, Ominous, Street-Smart, Gloomy, Wintry, Trippy, Earthy, Hypnotic, Detached, Intimate, Cerebral, Nocturnal, Druggy, Eerie, Brooding.
Much of this album is tracks of percussion and classical instruments mixed together. Trippy.

The Dust Brothers - 'Fight Club' score
These two guys spent most of their career producing albums for a wide variety of artists, the All Music Guide goes into more detail. Seeing the movie would give you a better idea of what this music feels like than what I could say. :)

(various) - 'Run Lola Run' score
"Appropriately, the music from Run Lola Run is frenetic, fast-paced techno - which serves as the driving force behind the film's adrenalized action sequences. About half the pieces were composed by the director himself (Tom Tykwer), and for the most part, the other contributors are little-known artists. But this is one of the most cohesive soundtrack albums in recent memory, and the music is excellent."

Wagon Christ - 'Musipal' or 'Tally Ho!'
Jungle Drum n' Bass. Fun, Freewheeling, Playful, Witty, Trippy, Detached, Stylish.

Fluke - 'Risotto'
Techno. Ethereal, Sensual, Trippy, Detached, Clinical, Stylish, Cerebral, Nocturnal.
You can really lose yourself in this album; Fluke has pretty much mastered the build-and-release of techno.

The Crystal Method - 'Vegas', or 'Tweekend'
Techno. Energetic, Rousing, Trippy, Hypnotic, Detached, Visceral, Party/Celebratory.
An early Gap commerical had a song from 'Vegas', which is how I found out about TCM and bought the album, the first album I'd ever bought on my own. 'Tweekend' is more energetic, though it took me more than one listening to adjust to the beats.

Prodigy - 'Fat Of The Land' or 'Music For The Jilted Generation'
Techno. Irreverent, Energetic, Raucous, Intense, Menacing, Brash, Rowdy, Rebellious, Cathartic, Volatile, Angry, Hostile.
'MFTJG' makes me think of William Gibson's settings, for some reason. It also contains the only device used in classical music I've ever seen in electronic music; the last three tracks are a suite.

Last but not least, if you're looking for electronic music online in MP3 form, use SoulSeek, which is specifically for electronica.

Have fun!

you only stream one band!

This has been my shopping habit until now:
1. AMG Music Guide for finding out bands that I might like.
2. AudioGalaxy to see if I actually do like them.
3. HMV online to buy it.
4. Repeat, lather, rinse.

Now that these blood-suckers have taken out no.2 I have no way of actually test driving music before I buy it. Using this method I've bought over 100 CDs in the last 6 months alone. And they dare accuse me of being a pirate.

Until they offer a similar service, for free, I guess I'll just have to stop buying music.

I hope that other people will now also vote with their dollars.

Sure there is. (Ok, I have may weird tastes in music)

Sure there is. (Ok, I have may weird tastes in music)

Here's a link for her discography and info at All Music Guide

I've been following her music for several years. I really dig it. It's a fun fusion of funky baselines, smooth melodies, rapping from laid back to angry, and jazzy transitions. Lyrical content ranges from melancholy to nostalgic to sensual to angry "fight the oppressors" type stuff.

I like her first album, "Plantation Lullabies", best.

Here's a link for her discography and info at All Music Guide

I've been following her music for several years. I really dig it. It's a fun fusion of funky baselines, smooth melodies, rapping from laid back to angry, and jazzy transitions. Lyrical content ranges from melancholy to nostalgic to sensual to angry "fight the oppressors" type stuff.

I like her first album, "Plantation Lullabies", best.

Of course, Windowlicker (the Aphex Twin CD this trick is on) is 3 years old...

It might actually be a reference to the excellent album by DJ Shadow, Endtroducing

I have often asked this same question: basically what I want is an All Music Guide for books.

The site would allow you to look up an author see his or her released books in chronological order by year published. You can't get that from Amazon because it's too clogged with marketing crap and duplicate listings of the same books.

Google and other tools are useful if you know what you are looking for, but for browsing a list of an author's collection there is no reliable source.

Hmmm, if this was 1995 I would smell a business plan brewing...

I download MP3's constantly. I have probably 20 gigs of mp3's, all downloaded from audiogalaxy and I have only bought a few CD's since I moved into my apartment and got my cable modem back in August. With few exceptions, almost any MP3 can be found and put into a queue to be downloaded. One of my favorite pastimes is to search on allmusic.com for bands that I like and see who they recommend, and then go to audiogalaxy and get a bunch of their mp3's. I have been exposed to SO MUCH wonderful music this way, and I would certainly miss it if it ceased to be available. But I have bought a few CD's, and they were all of things I had heard first on mp3's and decided that I would value having the actual album of. For one thing, I like having the whole package sometimes -the liner notes, and the lyrics (which used to be really easy to find online for free). But also there's the whole quality issue- there's sadly no consistently applied standard for MP3 encoding, and I get a lot of crappy stuff, and even with the good sounding stuff, you can tell the difference when you hear the actual CD. I also contribute to the artists by going to their shows when they come to town. We all know the record industry rips them off anyway, and that they make most of their money from their tours. And we all know that CD's only cost pennies a piece to manufacture and that even the "low" price of $12/cd is ridiculous. anyway... that's my $.02