AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American
online music database
Below is a table of online music databases that are largely free of charge. Note that many of the sites provide a specialized service or focus on a particular music genre. Some of these operate as an online music store or purchase referral ser ...
. It catalogs more than three million
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records co ...
entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on
musicians
A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who w ...
and
bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994.
AllMusic is owned by
RhythmOne
RhythmOne , previously known as Blinkx, and also known as RhythmOne Group, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel.
Blinkx was founded in 2004, went publ ...
.
History
AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by
Michael Erlewine
John Michael Erlewine (; born July 18, 1941) is an American musician, astrologer, photographer, TV host, publisher and Internet entrepreneur who founded the music online database site AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide) in 1991.
Car ...
, 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
The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octo ...
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".
Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using
metadata to create a music guide.
In 1990, in
Big Rapids, Michigan
Big Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 10,601 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Mecosta County. The city is located within Big Rapids Township, but it is politically independent. Big Rapids is home ...
, 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".
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''.
Its first online version, in 1994, was a text-based
Gopher
Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...
site.
It moved to the
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet.
Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...
as
web browser
A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...
s became more user-friendly.
Erlewine hired a database engineer,
Vladimir Bogdanov
Vladimir Leonidovich Bogdanov (russian: Владимир Леонидович Богданов; born 28 May 1951) is a Russian businessman and oil tycoon.
Biography and career
In 1973 he graduated from Tyumen Industrial Institute with a degre ...
, 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".
1,400 subgenres of music were created, a feature which became central to the site's utility. In a 2016 article in ''Tedium'', Ernie Smith wrote: "AllMusic may have been one of 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
Sadcore is a subgenre occasionally identified by music journalists to describe examples of alternative rock characterised by bleak lyrics, downbeat melodies and slower tempos, or alternatively, songs with deceivingly upbeat melodies that are simu ...
."
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.
Alliance filed for bankruptcy in 1999, and its assets were acquired by
Ron Burkle
Ronald Wayne Burkle (born November 12, 1952) is an American businessman. He is the co-founder and managing partner of The Yucaipa Companies, LLC, a private investment firm that specializes in U.S. companies in the distribution, logistics, food, ...
's Yucaipa Equity Fund.
In 1999, All Music relocated from Big Rapids to
Ann Arbor, where the staff expanded from 12 to 100 people.
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".
In late 2007, AllMusic was purchased for $72 million by
TiVo Corporation
TiVo Corporation, formerly known as the Rovi Corporation and Macrovision Solutions Corporation, was an American technology company. Headquartered in San Jose, California, the company is primarily involved in licensing its intellectual property ...
(known as Macrovision at the time of the sale, and as Rovi from 2009 until 2016).
In 2012, AllMusic removed all of
Bryan Adams
Bryan Guy Adams (born 5 November 1959) is a Canadian musician, singer, songwriter, composer, and photographer. He has been cited as one of the best-selling music artists of all time, and is estimated to have sold between 75 million and mor ...
' info from the site per a request from the artist.
In 2015, AllMusic was purchased by BlinkX (later known as
RhythmOne
RhythmOne , previously known as Blinkx, and also known as RhythmOne Group, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel.
Blinkx was founded in 2004, went publ ...
).
The AllMusic database is powered by a combination of
MySQL
MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...
and
MongoDB
MongoDB is a source-available cross-platform document-oriented database program. Classified as a NoSQL database program, MongoDB uses JSON-like documents with optional schemas. MongoDB is developed by MongoDB Inc. and licensed under the Ser ...
.
The All Music Guide series
The All Media Network produced the ''All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide'' (at first released as ''The Experts' Guide''),
which includes a series of publications about various music genres. It was followed by ''Required Listening'' series, and Annual guides.
Vladimir Bogdanov
Vladimir Leonidovich Bogdanov (russian: Владимир Леонидович Богданов; born 28 May 1951) is a Russian businessman and oil tycoon.
Biography and career
In 1973 he graduated from Tyumen Industrial Institute with a degre ...
is the president and the main editor of the series.
* ''All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music'' (1st edition: 1992, 2nd ed: 1994, 3rd ed: 1997, 4th ed: 2001, 5th ed: 2008)
* ''All Music Guide to Classical Music: The Definitive Guide to Classical Music'' (2004)
* ''All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music'' (1st ed: 1997, 2nd ed: 2003)
* ''All Music Guide to Electronica: The Definitive Guide to Electronic Music'' (2001)
* ''All Music Guide to Hip-hop: The Definitive Guide to Rap & Hip-hop'' (2003)
* ''
All Music Guide to Jazz: The Definitive Guide to Jazz Music'' (1st ed: 1994, 2nd ed: 1996, 3rd ed: 1998, 4th ed: 2002)
* ''All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul'' (1st ed: 1995, 2nd ed: 1997, 3rd ed: 2002)
* ''All Music Guide to Soul: The Definitive Guide to R&B and Soul'' (2003)
* ''
All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues'' (1st ed: 1996, 2nd ed: 1999, 3rd ed: 2003)
* ''All Music Guide Required Listening: Classic Rock'' (2007)
* ''All Music Guide Required Listening: Contemporary Country'' (2008)
* ''All Music Guide Required Listening: Old School Rap & Hip-hop'' (2008)
* ''All Music Guide to the Music of 2002: Your Guide to the Recordings of the Year'' (2003)
* ''All Music Guide to the Music of 2003: Your Guide to the Recordings of the Year'' (2004)
Reception
In August 2007, ''
PC Magazine'' included AllMusic in its "Top 100 Classic Websites" list.
See also
*
All Media Network
**
AllGame
RhythmOne , previously known as Blinkx, and also known as RhythmOne Group, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel.
Blinkx was founded in 2004, went publ ...
**
AllMovie
**
SideReel
SideReel is a Television show tracking website that allows users to manage various shows they watch. The TV community site gives user access to various discussions, reviews, and news articles related to shows. SideReel does not create or publish ...
References
External links
* {{Official website
1991 establishments in California
Gopher (protocol)
Internet properties established in 1991
Mass media companies established in 1991