It always surprises me how many people have not heard of ‘The All Music Guide ’. Allmusic is one of three All Media Guide (AMG) products. They provide guides for music; http://allmusic.com , movies; http://allmovie.com , and games; http://allgame.com .
According to the ‘About Us’ information on their website “The allmusic website was created in 1995 as a place for music fans to indulge their passion.” I’m one of those passionate music fans that enjoys using this definitive music database to lookup just about any known artist, album, song, or music producer.
Go ahead, type ‘Atomic Rooster’ in their search field and hit the ‘Go’ button. You’ll discover that Carl Palmer, the drummer of fame from ‘Emerson, Lake & Palmer’, was an original member of that 1969 era band. What if you need to settle an argument about the first actual rock & roll record? You’ll have a good argument if your answer is Jackie Brenston's 1951 Chess waxing of "Rocket 88". You were either there or you found the information in the allmusic database. You could get creamed in a music trivia contest without knowing these kinds of things.
You’ll find yourself going back to allmusic often to explore and read the endless biographies of artists and recordings. This extensive web based database is the perfect tool to keep it all straight. The album covers are there, sound samples, pictures, discography, charts and awards, song and album reviews. There are DVD and video listings, even the bootleg recordings are there. It’s not just rock music, all genres of music are there.
What makes allmusic a Communications Champ is the ease of use and wealth of information freely available. The home page features new music releases, an artist spotlight, links to videos, links to reviews and more.
Just a warning before you visit allmusic, make sure you have lots of time, you may be immersed for awhile as you discover what happened to that favourite musician or band of yours, or how many different covers of a particular song were recorded, or who played with Miles Davis on ‘Kind of Blue’, or what year did Ludwig van Beethovan pass away…