The New Allmusic: D/D?

There are a number of ways to buy online advertising - per view (impression), per click, per actual transaction subsequent to click - but in any of these cases, the advertisers are going to be most interested in AMG demonstrating that the people viewing/clicking the ads belong to the demographic/psychographic groups that the advertiser is targeting. They are most likely less intersted in whether or not the site is designed to generate more or less views/clicks . . . they just want qualified people in the numbers that they've negotiated.

Does "strategic opportunities" actually mean anything, for those versed in corporatespeak?

The Nine Pillars of Successful Web Teams
http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000242.php

I wasn't trying to be a smartass, at all. In businesspeak anything involving "strategy" almost always means "buying somebody out."

Strategy can relate to Organic Growth [without Strategic Acquisition.]

Organic Growth
http://www.exemplas.com/performance/147_2028.asp

it's true.

"strategic opportunities" sounds to me like "surgical strike." funny how corporatespeak and pentagonspeak have so much in common.

i'm not trying to make this amg thing more than it is.

i really liked amg, i thought a bunch of their reviewers were great, and i liked the simple and easy to use interface, even if it sometimes meant long page loads (i.e. for elvis presley). i use a lot of different computers, so it's unfeasible to keep logging in and out, not to mention the fact that the new interface relys heavily on graphics, thus leaving out all of us who still use (sigh) modems. so i would have to say dud, on the available evidence. maybe it'll improve, though.

their coverage of Polka---tragic.

I'll bet this has something to do with Microsoft's coming iTunes ripoff.

yeah, they always had huge gaps of course, how could they not? the least one could say is that they were always improving, though not at an even pace necessarily. i hope that advance hasn't halted though i suspect it has. better coverage of salsa probably wouldn't show up on the performance reports.

the lies and obfuscation of the (hastily-removed) apologia really seem to signal the end.

The old AMG...only a memor-eee...

Memories...Light the corners of my mind...misty water colored memooorieeess of the way we were...

That's hardly fair - you had less to work with.

http://www.mp3.com

they license a lot of Allmusic's material (although some info is not available), so you can use it instead. it's not as good as the old Allmusic, but it's a lot faster than the new one.

http://www.allmusic.com/old

until someone changes the directory permissions.

Especially on looking up Doom Metal. this album i've never heard of got 5 stars from 2000? i downloaded some tracks, it's fairly good, but is it worth 5 stars for such a jokey album?

or is this like that moronic "Who Dat?" thing.

Thulsa Doom - Seats Are Soft but the Helmet Is Way Too Tight

i can't afford the time for (and am not impressed by) the new grapics. From the old high content-per-screen site to the new too-many-clicks site, some costing ten seconds, with loads of intermediate rubbish

yeah DUD.
so was it too good to be true before, a free lunch ?
this new thingie is a real idealogical defeat for the values inherent in indie and so many other musics that AMG (the exception) covers

(can "Premium Users" customise out all this extra baggage with their site preferences ? i haven't had the time to try. i haven't found a "text only" but perhaps it's more reasonable to expect a "text with old-fashioned lo-bandwidth pictures or banners" option)

i'd pay a small-to-reasonable premium (as i do with so many other sites) to avoid most "suggestions" (the pictures) and all "latest" content(the ads) even if i usually don't want to register with _anyone_ connected to the music business. I sure hope AMG doesn't now go down the demographic modelling line just for those advertisers

Frank, if you like it more power to ya. I'm never going back. Microsoft's tit doesn't taste good to me.

They could have charged for their service as it was. Big deal, I would have forked over a couple of bucks a month or whatever.

According to Alliance Entertainment's press kit:

AMG customers include Barnes &
Noble, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Real Networks,
BlueLight.com (Kmart), CDNOW, Best Buy,
Circuit City, Blockbuster, Ticketmaster,
Yahoo!, AOL’s Spinner and MovieFone,
ARTISTdirect/UBL.com, and MTV
Networks Europe.

Are they gonna offend AOL (owner of Netscape) and Yahoo! to get in a monogomous fuck fest Microsoft?

i followed a tip from (I think) Marc Masters that if you subscribe, all the ads go away and the site runs turbo-charged, and this is indeed my experience

it's a no-brainer when i consider how much I've gained from allmusic over the past, I dunno.... 20 years??

I'm in your skull.

Good lord, they (or their owners Xperi rather) just laid off Stephen Thomas Erlewine from there. After 32 years! No lie, STE is the reason anyone even vaguely knows my name as a writer on music.

Oh wow, that’s a shocker. I noticed his byline on an article he wrote for AVClub but other than thinking it was good they were expanding music coverage didn’t think anything more of it.

firing erlewine seems impossible, can't believe it

damn that sucks, does not bode well

😳

No lie, STE is the reason anyone even vaguely knows my name as a writer on music.

Extra *s* at the end is a typo

Ned and Tom Erlewine were the first music bylines I learned.

yep, I knew those names from AMG before I joined ILX

Same here!

Holy cow. I have probably read more reviews by STE than any other single critic. Essentially synonymous with AMG.

Trying to remember if there was a gap for me and how long it was between reading Addicted to Noise and Allmusic. Seems that they overlapped for a while.

Ah, both appeared on the intranetz in 1994, but I wasn’t aware of Allmusic until quite a bit later.

Pretty sure Ned was the one who told me that AMG was looking to expand its pool of writers a hundred years ago or so, but I definitely had to go through STE to get hired on.

Holy cow. I have probably read more reviews by STE than any other single critic. Essentially synonymous with AMG.

― the last visible dot (Doctor Casino)

same. i have read soooooo many AMG review/blurbs over the years, and so many of them were written by STE. what an incredibly unknowledgable move by whoever owns it now

xpost Yup that was me and I definitely directed you to him.

Bummer. Like many, STE was my gateway into music discourse and the one who indirectly led me to ILX. End of an era but I hope he’ll bounce back real quick

Even if I rarely click on allmusic anymore, I still will see his byline all the time in the band bios on a certain streaming service

There was once a great screen name here I remember, “Stephen Thomas Duttywine”

I was bummed when I read his Facebook post. I think it’s very sweet you reposted the news. I smile whenever I see AllMusic bylines as so many of the writers became personal friends.

I spent way too much time editing music articles on Wikipedia and while I’m proud of that work and elated Wikipedia is now recognized as an encyclopedia of popular music, I’d readily admit much of that work and attribution can (and should) be directly attributed to AllMusic and, as far as my interests, Tom.

I don’t want to write about the business as all of you are much smarter than me but I suppose Wikipedia’s use of AllMusic is further evidence that open source is unethical or problematic but I’m thankful there’s open source mechanisms to keep the inevitable deletion from occurring.

I’ve always thought of Allmusic as “the place to read STE reviews (plus Ned on goth stuff)” - I’ve never really thought of AMG as a brand in itself. Like, what even is it without him? (Obvs there are other reviewers but ykwim).

To me its brand is “We review every record” (Not literally, but nearly)

"Review by TiVo Staff"...I forgot TiVo bought Allmusic, but I thought they sold them later on?

Probably AI

Definitely:

It's a powerful and often unpredictable set that reminds us that even though it's been a while since his last album, LL Cool J's track record has far more hits than misses.

Was about to look something up on their site and saw the new banner at the top:

https://i.ibb.co/bMFHG8Ln/dying-please-save-me.jpg

How the mighty, etc. (Honestly when they let STE go last year I knew something was up.)

The website banner and STE's layoff are unrelated. Tom was employed by TiVo/Xperi, not AllMusic. (When TiVo sold the AllMusic web property a decade ago, AllMusic became a distinct entity and a licensee of the database, including the metadata and editorial content.)

That sentence makes my head hurt.

Tom was writing for All Music but employed by TiVo, who had sold off AllMusic 10 years ago?

Yes, it's confusing. The AllMusic editors have not been actual AllMusic employees since 2015, when the website was spun off. The editors -- Tom and myself included -- remained with TiVo, which continues to license the metadata and writing to the site.