Top Ideas: AllMusic | Support for AllMusic and SideReel

Stop operating dishonestly, either just have a pay wall, or offer a sincere free basic tier

Idle Primate — Mon, 19 Oct 2020 12:14:44 +0000

I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with tiers of service. Quite the opposite, it is a way of making things economical for people. Having a free tier and a paid tier is also fair, and clever. You hook your customer, they love using the site, and eventually want more features unlocked. You should do that, or just offer a paid service. What you do right now is cruel and insulting. I see sites and apps where you can use for free with advertising, or pay and have a cleaner experience, or with less delays. Sometimes sites get greedy: I was at Youtube today and loaded a song. I had to sit through two commercials, no skip function and then less than one minute into the song it switched to a commercial break. That's disgusting. It's greedy and they wrecked the song--they wrecked my reason for coming to the site. I didn't feel an urge to pay for ad free service, but to abandon the site.

Your site is completely blanketed in ads--and its not that your selling ad space, you're deliberately making the site difficult to use. I came today and ads kept popping up, moving around, randomly playing loud video. I would attempt to click a link and an ad would have slid on in under my cursor. I couldn't read the contents of the page. You made the site non-functional. On the page where you can pay the ransom to have the site freed, you advertise much greater speed as a benefit because you've so completely glutted the free one under ads.

So, what I get out of all that, is you think I'm stupid, you feel manipulating me is good business. You are fraudulently claiming to have a free basic tier, but what you provide is an unusable site designed to be frustrating and distressing. I am autistic and ADHD and your website makes my heart race with confusion and panic. There is a distinct difference, well familiar and recognisable by now, between websites with advertising and sites employing the ad bomb strategy in attempt to compel us to pay so we will actually be able to use the site. This is not tiers. The free tier is a slap in the face. It tells me you don't respect me at all and your happy to mess with me and manipulate my money out of me. What makes you think I would want to do business with people who treat me like this?

add title filter to Advanced Search

rootsmusic — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 04:08:10 +0000

Like the artist filter, please add a title filter to Advanced Search. If I can filter by title, then I can sort niche albums. For example, I want to sort the highest rated "unplugged" title or "tribute" titles.

Missing Entries Request Thread

Matski — Mon, 20 Jul 2020 19:03:37 +0000

Can we use this forum as a place to request new discography entries? I've noticed a handful of recent albums that seem to have missed AllMusic's radar. It may be because they haven't been physical released yet though they have all been made available digitally. Users who have already had a chance to listen to these albums may also appreciate being able to rate them. Here are the missing albums:

Boris - 'No' [Sources - Official Site | Bandcamp]
Chloe x Halle - 'Ungodly Hour' [Sources - Official Store | Soundcloud]
Nicolas Jaar - 'Telas' [Sources - Official Site | Bandcamp]
Owen Pallett - 'Island' [Sources - Official Label | Bandcamp]
R.A.P. Ferreira* – 'Purple Moonlight Pages' [Sources - Official Store | Bandcamp]

*R.A.P. Ferreira is the new moniker of Rory Ferreira. He has previously released music under the aliases Milo and Scallops Hotel. If a new profile is created then it would be helpful to link them all.

It is disappointing to see that All Music engages in censorship

Cargocoffee — Sat, 19 Dec 2020 16:38:07 +0000

It is disappointing to see that All Music engages in censorship.

In response to the review of Ryan Adams new album in which the reviewer didn't actually discuss the merits of the record but instead focused on the controversy surrounding the artist, I wrote the following:

”Well, that is an embarrassing non-review by All Music. I get it: Ryan Adams is a creep. But you know what? Many if not most artists are creeps. Is All Music going to go back and down review records put out by Jerry Lee Lewis? Led Zepplin? Phil Spector?

Wednesdays is a fascinating and very introspective collection of songs by an artist on the outs. Many of the songs are achingly beautiful both in their composition and performance. Is Ryan Adams capable of growth as a person? We might find out. But Wednesdays show him growing as an artist. Those who are interested in such things should check this album out.”

All Music deleted the first paragraph.

It was fair (and quite obvious) criticism.

Do better All Music. And support the free exchange of ideas.

include artist's styles in Advanced Search

rootsmusic — Wed, 04 Nov 2020 20:05:01 +0000

Since some (especially older) albums are missing metadata for styles, please include the artist's styles when filtering in Advanced Search.

Upcoming Album Reviews

Matski — Tue, 07 Jul 2020 15:17:29 +0000

Congrats on the new home AMG staffers. To help you get things started here I wanted to ask if it would be possible to get some new albums listed for review. All of these are already out digitally but are still awaiting physical release. It would be interesting to get your reviewer's opinions on the following:

[07/17] The Soft Pink Truth - Shall We Go on Sinning So That Grace May Increase?
[07/17] Yaeji - What We Drew
[08/07] Laura Marling - Song for Our Daughter
[08/21] Alchemist & Freddie Gibbs - Alfredo
[08/21] Jeff Rosentock - No Dream

Out of these, I'd highly recommend Laura Marling and Alchemist/Freddie Gibbs. Both albums contain some of their best material. I'd also like to recommend your reviewers check out new indie-rock act Porridge Radio and their album - Every Bad, despite it already having seen physical release.

That should keep your team busy for a bit. Hopefully they'll find plenty to enjoy.

Limit reviews, sure, and 3000 characters is not enough

Kate Harvie — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 17:50:19 +0000

You want people to share honest, thorough perspectives and opinions about records. To do this, you need to give us space to do it. I'm 3000 characters is insufficient here, and I ask you to please consider extending the length of reviews. If you want to be a destination for people to learn, be inspired, and buy, this is a way to do that.

Advanced Search - Sort by Artist

Matski — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 13:54:09 +0000

Is there any chance of implementing a toggle to the artist name column, in the advanced search? Having the ability to order between artists alphabetically or reverse-alphabetically would be very helpful. It seems odd that the other three columns have this feature but this one doesn't.

Please add YouTube Music, Tidal and Bandcamp as streaming services

Mark Bartlett — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 00:33:06 +0000

Not all of us use Spotify, Amazon and Apple for streaming. YouTube Music is great for allowing the user to 'fill gaps' in their music libraries by uploading tracks, Bandcamp are by far the best financial supporters of musicians, and Tidal are well-regarded for their sound quality. Please consider adding all three to the list of streaming services that we use.

I would subscribe to your ad free service in a minute if you would provide Spotify links in your emails and on your website. Promise!

wiesenator — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 18:37:54 +0000

Please, add a play on Spotify link to all albums and reviews in email and on your website. If possible, add an option to add the album to a play later play list. That would be totally cool and I would subscribe to a paid subscription if that would be an exclusive feature. Ad free is not that important to me. I either ignore the ads or use an ad blocker. Add some cool value to the subscription.

Thanks, André

album review request

rootsmusic — Sat, 05 Feb 2022 02:16:17 +0000

I'm surprised that your editors didn't review Anaïs Mitchell's new album. Critics from most music publications have chosen to review it. Unlike Allmusic, they also reviewed her last album of originals from a decade ago.

After a decade, she has something original to say on record again. When a singer-songwriter self-titles an eponymous album, I always regard it as a personal statement. Even among fellow Grammy winners, she stands out for having won a Tony Award too.

Wow! This site is really outdated! No actual NEW artists added in years. How about Rob Adcock who just dropped a DOUBLE PLATINUM album under Universal Music Group and is so freaking popular that EVERY song on the album was released as a single and he has

Christa M — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 21:47:26 +0000

Please add more preferred streaming services

Elektronen — Sun, 08 Jun 2025 21:18:22 +0000

Hello. I would like to see Bandcamp added to the available preferred streaming service choices. Thanks.

Remembering Chuck Negron

Ken MacLeod — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 06:04:05 +0000

I found out today that Chuck Negron of Three Dog Night has passed away. I just thought it would be nice if you could post something in his honor on your main page. Thank you.

Let users suggest similar artists, similar albums

Benoit MORRIER — Thu, 30 Jul 2020 17:45:57 +0000

It would be nice to have a place where members can suggest similar artists or similar albums, with a rating system (up arrow, down arrow) for the suggestions.

Current "similar artists", "similar albums" could also include that rating system.

We could then see at a glance what other people suggest and general consensus about similarities.

add record labels to Advanced Search

rootsmusic — Tue, 10 Aug 2021 14:58:34 +0000

Please add record label as a field in Advanced Search. For most record labels, browsing returns too many results without filtering capability. For example, Cleopatra has been credited as a record label on thousands of albums. (About a quarter of its albums are tributes, and many have an interesting twist because they're recorded in a musical style different from the tributee's style.)

P.S. please delete my duplicate idea.

Would it be possible to bring back the short, tagline-like versions of the bio, perhaps with a read-more button to expand them to the full bio?

Sophie Corsentino — Mon, 06 Sep 2021 06:33:26 +0000

As the artist pages stand right now, I see little point in even having the biography tab when the biography is already taking up most of the page real estate to begin with. The short taglines were earnestly my favorite feature of the site - the ability to quickly learn what an artist is about without having to read the full bio was EXTREMELY valuable to me, and in building my own personal library I often added the short bio taglines as "comments" in the metadata of my MP3s, and wrote my own when none were to be found. Besides that, I think the text wall that's taking up the bulk of the page on artist's pages is difficult to read and ugly - why have THAT much text if you can't read the whole thing right there?

deserves full biography

rootsmusic — Tue, 14 Sep 2021 06:03:39 +0000

For an artist who has several 4-star albums, Stomu Yamashta deserves more than a single-sentence bio. I know that I can read album reviews, but a full biography would have a career overview that helps a newbie understand which album that I'm more likely to prefer. An album pick would also be a nice tip to decide among his highest rated albums.

For your Year in Review (albums of the year)

Myster Zman — Mon, 13 Dec 2021 20:28:31 +0000

it would be really nice if there was an audio player embedded on each page so I can listen to a preview of each artist. It can be time consuming to go through each album page or look the artist up online on another site and then preview. It would be nice if an embedded player into each page gave a preview of at least a couple of songs from the record posted.

Include the possibility to filter the albums in your collection in the advanced search

Arthur G. — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 14:18:23 +0000

It would be nice to be able to filter the albums already in our collection in the advanced search, as Rate Your Music does.