Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
AllMusic
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==History== AllMusic was launched as ''All-Music Guide'' by [[Michael Erlewine]], 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 [[compact disc]]s (CDs) replaced [[LP record|LPs]] and [[cassette (format)|cassettes]] 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".<ref name="Metro" /> Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using [[metadata]] to create a music guide.<ref name="Videoland book">{{cite book |last1=Herbert |first1=Daniel |title=Videoland: Movie Culture at the American Video Store |date=January 24, 2014 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Los Angeles, CA |isbn=978-0520279636 |page=209 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lV98AgAAQBAJ&q=All+Music+Guide+Michael+Erlewine+founded+astrologer&pg=PA209 |access-date=July 20, 2017}}</ref> In 1990, in [[Big Rapids, Michigan]], 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".<ref name="Wired" /> 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''.<ref name="world cat first ed">{{cite book |title=Formats and Editions of All Music Gude |publisher=World Cat |oclc=31186749}}</ref> Its first online version, in 1994, was a text-based [[Gopher (protocol) |Gopher]] site.<ref name="Wired" /><ref name="Vice history">{{cite news |last1=Nosowitz |first1=Dan |title=The Story of AllMusic, Which Predates the World Wide Web |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-internets-most-complete-guide-to-music/ |access-date=June 22, 2017 |work=[[Vice (magazine)|Vice]] |date=January 30, 2015}}</ref> It moved to the [[World Wide Web]] as [[web browser]]s became more user-friendly.<ref name="Metro" /> Erlewine hired a database engineer, [[Vladimir Bogdanov (editor)|Vladimir Bogdanov]], 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".<ref name="Metro" /> 1,400 subgenres of music were created, a feature that became central to the site's utility. In a 2016 article in ''Tedium'', Ernie Smith wrote: "AllMusic may have been one of the most ambitious sites of the early-internet eraโand 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]]."<ref name="big data smith">{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=Ernie |title=The Big Data Jukebox |url=http://tedium.co/2016/09/20/allmusic-database-historic-importance/ |website=tedium.com |publisher=Tedium |access-date=July 26, 2017 |date=September 20, 2016}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Metro" /> Alliance filed for bankruptcy in 1999, and its assets were acquired by [[Ron Burkle]]'s Yucaipa Equity Fund.<ref name="Videoland book" /> In 1999, All Music relocated from Big Rapids to [[Ann Arbor, Michigan]], where the staff expanded from 12 to 100 people.<ref name="Metro" /> 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".<ref name="Weisbard Voice">{{cite news |last1=Weisbard |first1=Eric |title=Conjunction Junction |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/1999/02/23/conjunction-junction/ |access-date=July 22, 2017 |work=[[The Village Voice]] |date=February 23, 1999}}</ref><ref name="NPR">{{cite news |last1=Powers |first1=Ann |title=Digital Underground Who Will Make Sure The Internet's Vast Musical Archive Doesn't Disappear? |url=https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2015/06/03/411666224/digital-underground |access-date=July 20, 2017 |work=[[NPR]] |date=June 3, 2015}}</ref> In late 2007, AllMusic was purchased for $72 million by [[TiVo Corporation]] (known as Macrovision at the time of the sale, and as Rovi from 2009 until 2016).<ref>{{cite web |title=Focus Article: Rovi Corporation |url=http://www.insidearbitrage.com/2012/10/weekly-focus-article-rovi-corporation-rovi/ |website=insidearbitrage.com |publisher=Inside Arbitrage |date=October 1, 2012 |access-date=September 28, 2017}}</ref> In 2012, AllMusic removed all of [[Bryan Adams]]' info from the site per a request from the artist.<ref>{{cite web |title=FAQ |url=https://www.allmusic.com/faq/topic/bryanadams |website=AllMusic |access-date=September 17, 2019 |language=en-us}}</ref> In 2015, AllMusic was purchased by BlinkX, later known as [[RhythmOne]].<ref>{{cite news |title= Blinkx Acquires Website Owner All Media Network For Undisclosed Amount |first=Sam |last=Unsted |publisher =London South East |date= April 16, 2015 |url= http://www.lse.co.uk/AllNews.asp?code=64stlp40&headline=Blinkx_Acquires_Website_Owner_All_Media_Network_For_Undisclosed_Amount}}</ref><ref name="rhythmone"/> The AllMusic database is powered by a combination of [[MySQL]] and [[MongoDB]].<ref name="ernie smith vice">{{cite news |last1=Smith |first1=Ernie |title=The Story of AllMusic, the Internet's Largest, Most Influential Music Database |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-story-of-allmusic-the-internets-largest-most-influential-music-database/ |website=Vice |access-date=July 20, 2017 |date=September 16, 2016}}</ref>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)