quote:

Originally posted by smileyface:
Allmusic.com is easily the most consistent and reliable music resource in the world. They avoid individual bias of many critics for well rounded reviews whether I agree with them or not......I agree with them more than any other resource. They make all other music journalism look silly in my opinion. Pitchfork or Rolling Stone are predictable and are usually based on poor reviews by critics trying to make a point rather than judge the music. Specifically RS......eww....

Rolling Stone still covers music?

Anyone know what's going on with AMG's website? I haven't been able to access it over the last two days. Are they revamping once again?

I’ve used it the past few days and I just tried it right now and it seems to be working fine for me.

Weird. Are you using a Mac or PC?

It doesn't work for me right now either, MJ, but I was on it last night.

AMG = Error 2 Timeout MIW11

A PC, Max.

But seeing the error message crazed posted, I have gotten that one a lot over the past few weeks. It certainly does seem like something is up with the site.

I still can't log onto AMG via my Mac, but the PC seems to be working fine. They must be doing something.

I don't really put a lot of stake in their criticism. Take, for example, Enrique Iglesias, who I find to be one of the most worthless and consistently unlistenable "artists" in popular music. Looking at his discography, he has 5 albums rated "4 stars".

But it is an amazing resource. If you're new to a band and want to know where to start, there's nowhere better than Allmusic.

This site is really annoying, I have frequently been getting this error message: Error 2 Timeout CAW04.

Something must be up with that site.

quote:

Posted by Alecks
I don't really put a lot of stake in their criticism. Take, for example, Enrique Iglesias, who I find to be one of the most worthless and consistently unlistenable "artists" in popular music. Looking at his discography, he has 5 albums rated "4 stars".

I'm pretty sure this criticism has been dealt with before, but Allmusic measure albums against others by the artist rather than against a general abstract criteria.
Thus, even Iglesias can get 4 star recordings, because he is technically only in competition with himself.

Hope this explanation brings down yr blood pressure somewhat.

Did anyone notice back in the day that Allmusic couldn't give 3.5 star reviews? Every other score on the 5 star spectrum was possible, but nothing ever got 3.5. And I mean they actually couldn't give it. If you checked, they didn't actually have a 3.5 star gif to use beside reviews. Weird. They do now though.

In my hard copy of the AMG (2nd Ed. copyright 1997), the only stars were either filled stars ("essential and good as a first purchase") or empty stars ("should be part of any good collection of the genre"), and an album either received a star or it didn't. Only diamonds were used in the five-diamond system and no half-diamond ratings were used that I know of.

Allmusic guide is mostly good as a source of history and research. They do a pretty good job compiling discographies that could be confusing from very prolific artists like Bob Dylan.

I don't really think Metacritic should count AMG's review scores in its overall tabulation, though. They simply aren't credible. In fact, AMG isn't really meant to be a review source for criticism at all; their ratings have less to do with an individual opinion, and more to do with other critics' reaction to an album. In that sense, AMG's scores are similar to Metacritic's scores - and it would be odd if Metacritic somehow counted its own "Metascore" in the tabulation of album reviews!

AMG's album of the day is The Undertones!!!