allmusic

When I'm listening to new music, sometimes it largely feels like a conversation with myself.  So self, what do you think of this album?  Who would you compare this to?  How does the song's structure and lyrics hold up in the greater arc of all music ever released?  Some of these questions can be more difficult to answer than others.  When I'm listening to music I usually know a few things, 1. I found this somehow and 2. I would or wouldn't bother listening to it again.  After that, there's a lot of different ways you can go.  I guess what I'm getting at is, allmusic.com is awesome.

That's the direction I thought I was going with that.  I remember way back in high school when I first started going to their site, it was basically a competition between the online version of Rolling Stone magazine, them, and a few other random indepent-type sources.  Although, not to give allmusic too much credit since I don't think they have nearly the funding capabilities of Rolling Stone or the history.  But their site is better for what I use it for.

I think that this discussion is about editors.  I'm sure all the places that write reviews have just fine editors.  But Allmusic is a more complete source of editorial content.  They have chosen to focus on history of all music (as the name implies).  This allows them to do things like connect bands and influences.  To profile genres.  This place was actually like a music history course for me (in fact I actually did a school project by citing their research).  So, when I start feeling like I'm having a conversation with myself a bit too much, I can go to their site and sort of include them in my discussion.