July 20, 2004

The All Music Guide gets reworked. The unrivaled music information site recently got a facelift, as well as a number of new features, including music samples and sortable search results. Hopefully the new incarnation will be even better than the awesome predecessor; one drawback, though, is that most of the new features require sign-up, albeit free of charge. I'll miss the signature chunky yellow scheme, but the sleek new metallic seems pretty slick as well.
posted by wo mu si 20 years ago
  • Apparently, the incredible mental burden of having to type a correct URL was just too much for me. As you can probably guess, the correct link is www.allmusic.com (Any ideas why the link didn't work out?)
  • Here's a link that works. Good post!
  • Any ideas why the link didn't work out? The link needs to start with "http://" or the shiznit gets all confused.
  • You know, I really should have checked out the new AMG more before posting the link. I was jsut so excited I couldn't contain myself. But for some reason, none of my searches are working there. Not sure if anyone else is having the same problem.
  • And the new tab format is just awful, if you ask me. If they wanted to do something useful, they could have worked on re-enabling right click for opening in a new browser window. Lots of compatability problems with everything but IE too, it seems. Lately I've been just using MSN's music site, which is driven by AllMusic's engine, but isn't timing out like AllMusic is lately. Hopefully they get the bugs worked out soon.
  • Drat. I can't seem to successfullyclick through almost any links or complete any search (the submit button just dumbly clicks with no response). Sorry to bring y'all untested goods.
  • Searches and pages seem to work fine on Safari. Connection to music samples is pretty slow, so there are probably bugs still being worked out. Good content, which makes up for all else. wo mu si- have you flushed your cache?
  • Yeah, I emptied the cache and I'm still having the same problem. When I hover over links, the cursor doesn't even turn to the happy little link hand.
  • Waxy.org read my mind, exactly:
    One of my favorite music-related websites is All Music Guide... when I heard they were redesigning, I was excited to see if they'd fix my laundry list of complaints with the existing site: the inadequate search engine, their convoluted URL structure, inaccessible and confusing Javascript tricks (like showing/hiding biography text and blocking right-click URL copying), and the frequent server timeouts. They not only failed to fix any of my complaints, but they made it worse. Much worse. The URLs are worse than before, now so long that they can't be sent by e-mail. Biographies, discographies and album reviews are no longer a single page, so you're forced to click through to multiple pages to view the content you want. And the site's slower than ever, and I'm periodically getting server timeouts and connection delay error messages. (Oh, and the spinning Flash navigation is a waste of space.)
  • Wedge and .kobayashi., yes, yes, yes. I am very disappointed with the new AllMusic Guide. It's not a very dynamic site: there's no reason why they couldn't have adopted javascript free links and a sensible directory structure. I also really dislike the new advertisements down the side. Maybe I am just shocked at the new design, but I can't help feeling that it's not as smooth to use as before. It's lost a lot of its warmth.
  • Yes yes alright. But at least now it looks like I might be able to create a customized search for my deskbar. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go fiddle with some URLs.
  • Jesus. This POS fails every criteria of usability I can imagine: searches delivered by POST (makes navigating with back/forward a hassle, prevents easy cut/paste/cite of searches); they've done something fucking hideous with their hrefs, mouseovers don't cause the pointer to change in the search results (am I pointing at a link? A blank expanse? Who the fuck knows?); Flashturbation in the nav bar; the site randomly hangs on loading when cookies are disabled; middle-click doesn't work in Firefox (wonder how they broke that?); some dickwad didn't think that this might like to return a useful error. WHAT. THE. FUCK?
  • The tab system is aweful. So much forward and back when it used to all be on one page. I don't see what was wrong with that system. I wonder if there's anyway you can still use the classic layout with the new features...
  • I agree with the criticisms levied so far against the new site, but I do think there are a number of great improvements. Searching by song turns up better results and it is easier to find the version you are looking for. Having advance search capability is better than not having it, even if its not THAT much better than the previous version. Additionally, when searching by keyword in the song title it used to do a strict left to right return, so only song titles begining with the pharse would show up. Essentially, you'd get "Monkey Lover" but not "Lover of the Monkey". Doing said search just now, I am a bit suspicious of the relatively low number of returns I got, so maybe they've simply swapped one problem for another. Hmmm. I've been a so called "AMG Insider" for quite some time and they started hyping the redesign about a year ago. It is too bad they didn't invite more of us to preview the new design when our input could have been a bit more useful. Basically, I wish they had looked more closely at why IMDb is so popular. It is great because it just works and loads quickly (unless they are hosting one of those obnoxious front page ads). That said, I appreciate what improvements we got and knowing they've been flooded with negative feedback, I hope next time around they'll keep it simple.
  • Not just the FPP that's of interest here, but the many and varied comments about it! Great post, great thread -- thanks to all.
  • I still prefer the old version, but maybe is just a question of days... and then i'll appreciate also this one.. In the first days of the new version there were a lot of problems. I use Opera and i had some impagination problems... Sorry for my bad english. I'm italian. cya
  • I'd be very curious to know how many continental European members we had.
  • Hmmm, maybe this is the pause before the other shoe drops. A few years ago CD Now was a terrific music info source, with endless crosslinks, quality writing and a good search engine (at least I thought so). Then suddenly it was absorbed by the Amazon.com blob. 'Cause ya know there just aren't enough places that sell lawn tractors with their cds. grumble grumble
  • You can't browse the genres without a login? That's crap. I miss the all you can eat days of emusic.
  • Bleah. It's ugly, confusing, and more time-consuming than the old style (which is saying something). Maybe I'll walk down to their headquarters (conveniently about a mile and a half from my place) and give them my two cents. (I was going to post this the other day, but thought that no one would care. Guess I'm wrong)
  • Wow. That IS a pain in the ass.
  • I've seen it before this post and had a mild heart attack when I saw it. AMG has been the same for so long that it's hard for me to get used to. Although, I still have a beef with them for rating this album a masterpiece. It's not even good. In fact, it sucks ass.
  • Sullivan: I couldn't disagree more. I'd say if anything is overrated on his page it is "The River". Born In The USA was my introduction to Springsteen as a child, but my appreciation for it now is not simply rooted in nostalgia. I left Bruce for a long time because i never bothered to explore the earlier stuff until college. When I came back I went more or less chronologically and now consider "Born" a rather essential and wonderful chapter in the story. His storytelling is channeled and whittled down to where songs like 'Bobby Jean' contain a universe with as few words as necessary. Of course, his gift for storytelling was present on the first album, but it takes its most dramatic turn on "Born". I know a lot of people miss the complex arrangements of the pre-"The River" stuff, but the strict 4/4 intensity of "Born" complements the streamlined story process and helps the songs move directly to the juggular. In general, I wish he wouldn't have strayed so far from what is, to me, the essential Springsteen of "The Wild...", "Born to Run" and "Darkness", but his career is his own. I'll still never forgive "Tunnel of Love" though. Or the two that followed. Or most of the final two. Oh well...
  • You fellows with your "rock" music and your "hair".
  • Springteen vocals are horrible on that album. I can't understand a single word he's singing. I'm Going Down has one of the most annoying choruses in rock music history (and think about what you're saying Boss). It just goes on and on. Born in the USA wasn't even the best album of 1984. Zen Arcade, Purple Rain, Let It Be, Double Nickels On A Dime and Meat Puppets II were much better albums.
  • Plenty of discussion on this topic over at waxy's.