The new allmusic.com sucks

[mrjazzman]

I don't know about you all but i think the revamped allmusic.com stinks, now comparison to the old site. i know someone will disagree so lets hear it.........mrjazzman

[Christiern]

It has never been wholly satisfactory, but I agree that the new format is not an improvement. I wish they had spent the energy it took to change it on something else--like fact and consistency checking.

[Harold_Z]

I agree 100% with you ! They took an easy to use, helpful refernce site and turned it into a slow moving, cumberson site that doens't give as much info as the old site.

Sucks big time.

[WD45]

After being a daily visitor for years, I stopped going there at all together after the revamp. Sucks all-around.

[kinuta]

Ditto all the previous comments. I can't understand what has been done to this previously good site. It's slow, user unfriendly lacking in information.

[jazzbo]

Which means. . . it just got slower.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

What exactly has changed since the revamp of last year (July?) - that was when I stopped using it much at all, so I can't really see any difference from then.

Has it gotten even worse than that?

Mike

[MartyJazz]

They got rid of the pictures which makes for a print-riddled, eye unappetizing, site. No photos of the musicians of which you used to be able to catch 3 or 4 of a particular artist at different stages of his/her career, as well as, no jpgs of the individual albums. Can't understand the thinking that went into ths revamp.

[Aggie87]

They got rid of the pictures which makes for a print-riddled, eye unappetizing, site.  No photos of the musicians of which you used to be able to catch 3 or 4 of a particular artist at different stages of his/her career, as well as, no jpgs of the individual albums.  Can't understand the thinking that went into ths revamp.

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I'm still pulling JPG images of album covers from allmusic for the "what are you listening to" thread, so they're still there.

Things definitely aren't as easy to get to though. And I miss the feature where you could see all the "sideman" appearances of an artist. Maybe that's still there if you register with their site, but I haven't done that yet, and don't really care to.

Weren't they at one point going to change their site to a fee-for-use type thing? Maybe they reduced the amount of content they were intending to let people surf for free, and the bulk of it was going to be on the pay side, which AFAIK didn't end up happening.

[MartyJazz]

I don't know from where you're pulling the album jpg files. I just looked up McCoy Tyner's ILLIMINATIONS, a recent album. Here's the link to the site which specifies all the tunes performed on the album. Where's the photo jpg of the album cover?

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:b7f8zff3eh6k

AFAICS, you have to click on "buy" which takes you to an Amazon.com site wherein you can see a small jpg of the album cover. The album covers though are no longer on the All Music site.

Martin

[Aggie87]

I clicked on your link, and this is the JPG that I see right there:

It's right above the "buy" button you're clicking, at least for me.

Edited June 9, 2005 by Aggie87

[robviti]

I don't know from where you're pulling the album jpg files.  I just looked up McCoy Tyner's ILLIMINATIONS, a recent album.  Here's the link to the site which specifies all the tunes performed on the album.  Where's the photo jpg of the album cover?

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:b7f8zff3eh6k

AFAICS, you have to click on "buy" which takes you to an Amazon.com site wherein you can see a small jpg of the album cover.  The album covers though are no longer on the All Music site.

Martin

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frankly, i'm confused by your comment. i see the jpeg for illuminations there, and here it is pasted from the site:

[Dan Gould]

Clearly there's some sort of glitch in how Marty's accessing the site or how it displays to him. I have no problem seeing JPEGs of album covers either.

Maybe AMG likes Delray Beach but Boynton Beach ... not so much.

[Rooster_Ties]

They got rid of the pictures which makes for a print-riddled, eye unappetizing, site.  No photos of the musicians of which you used to be able to catch 3 or 4 of a particular artist at different stages of his/her career, as well as, no jpgs of the individual albums.

←

All the album covers are still there for me (and I'm not even logged in to their site at the moment). Ditto for the photos of musicians, including multiple pics for the better-known ones.

Sideman info and sound-clips are available if you register.

I didn't and still don't like the changes either (and many of the changes downright stink) -- but having the audio-clips for OOP titles is a HUGE plus ( ), and one I'll hate to see go if they ever start charging $$$ to get at them (cuz I'm sure I won't pay any kind of fee to use their site).

[Dan Gould]

As far as sideman appearances go, in the discography page, there is a "credits" tab that gives that info. I did do the free signup, maybe that's why I get that link?

My one major gripe is the fact that searching for "Song" doesn't give you any useful info. It used to be that you'd get a list of albums that a particular song appears on, and you could click on whatever album you were looking for. Now, it doesn't give you that option, so I don't know what the point of searching by "Song" would be.

I'm not quite as negative on the revamp as most people, maybe I've just gotten used to it now, but it doesn't seem particularly slow anymore, and otherwise, you can still find your bios and album reviews. I've never trusted their discographical stuff, so who cares if its their or not, correct or not? Its just as likely to be incorrect, so I ignore whatever it says.

[neveronfriday]

From a web designer's point of view they did actually get things right, but most of them, because of laziness or back engine restrictions, they definitely got wrong:

a) They removed some of the heavy table structures they used to have (good).

b) They use some tables that are completely unnecessary and take away the speed they gained by removing tables in a) (bad)

c) On sub pages (discography) we suddenly have table monsters again. Those are enough to give you the shivers. No idea why they did that. Loading times skyrocket because of that. (very bad)

c) Their CMS, whatever they are using (too lazy to check) is just too slow, or the server(s) they host their SQL databases on just can't handle the tremendous amount of traffic they seem to be having. (confusing and stupid)

d) They only did cosmetic work. Nothing was done in regard to fact checking, etc. (sucks).

good + bad + very bad + confusing/stupid + sucks = waste of time

I haven't used the site more than once a month, perhaps, and am reducing even that. Maybe that's what they wanted all along ... reducing the page hit count? Who knows. These sites (= the management) work in mysterious ways.

Edited June 9, 2005 by neveronfriday

[couw]

My one major gripe is the fact that searching for "Song" doesn't give you any useful info.  It used to be that you'd get a list of albums that a particular song appears on

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still does that from where I am sitting

[Dan Gould]

My one major gripe is the fact that searching for "Song" doesn't give you any useful info.  It used to be that you'd get a list of albums that a particular song appears on

←

still does that from where I am sitting

←

Yes, but there are no links to the albums ... or at least the links don't work for me.

[Jim Alfredson]

good + bad + very bad + confusing/stupid + sucks = waste of time

←

Could you provide a proof of this theorem? I am intrigued by the possibilities since, IIRC, the standard theorem accepted by academia is:

good + bad + very bad + confusing/stupid + sucks = The Michael Jackson Trial

[neveronfriday]

The problems are not unique to AMG, as you have proven.

[Rooster_Ties]

Still, with all its problems, it's worth every penny I've ever spent to use it.

[RDK]

Still, with all its problems, it's worth every penny I've ever spent to use it.     

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Exactly. Frankly, I'm confused by this thread. All of the changes that AMG went through took place nearly a year ago. I wasn't fond of them then, and they're still annoying now, but it doesn't bother me much to use the site. If you're not a "member," then sign up and cookie yourself in. All access and no hassle re: passwords and stuff. Still one of the best (free) music resources on the net.

[MartyJazz]

Clearly there's some sort of glitch in how Marty's accessing the site or how it displays to him.  I have no problem seeing JPEGs of album covers either.

Maybe AMG likes Delray Beach but Boynton Beach ... not so much.

←

OK, I figured out why I have a problem and it certainly does not reflect well on All Music.com. It seems AMG no longer fully supports a Netscape browser which is the one I primarily use. When I accessed the site via Internet Explorer I got everything as before, i.e., photos of the individual artists as well as album cover jpgs.

[JohnJ]

Still, with all its problems, it's worth every penny I've ever spent to use it.      

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Exactly. Frankly, I'm confused by this thread. All of the changes that AMG went through took place nearly a year ago. I wasn't fond of them then, and they're still annoying now, but it doesn't bother me much to use the site. If you're not a "member," then sign up and cookie yourself in. All access and no hassle re: passwords and stuff. Still one of the best (free) music resources on the net.

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The complaints confuse me too, I signed up for free once they introduced that option and find the site as quick and useful as ever. Then again, I am perfectly happy with a PC and IE. I guess I am easy to please.

[mrjazzman]

As far as sideman appearances go, in the discography page, there is a "credits" tab that gives that info.  I did do the free signup, maybe that's why I get that link?

My one major gripe is the fact that searching for "Song" doesn't give you any useful info.  It used to be that you'd get a list of albums that a particular song appears on, and you could click on whatever album you were looking for.  Now, it doesn't give you that option, so I don't know what the point of searching by "Song" would be.

I'm not quite as negative on the revamp as most people, maybe I've just gotten used to it now, but it doesn't seem particularly slow anymore, and otherwise, you can still find your bios and album reviews.  I've never trusted their discographical stuff, so who cares if its their or not, correct or not?  Its just as likely to be incorrect, so I ignore whatever it says.

←

What I hat most is that on the old site when you put a unique, one of a kind title in the search engine it would take you right to that LP, now when you put the same info in the search engine you get back a long list and have to hunt for your LP. Most of the time its near the top of the list but not always