IMDb Music Section

Look, I find Last.fm useful as hell, and I dig it not just for the social side of things but for the info too, but here’s the kicker: I don't treat the damn thing like some kind of encyclopedia. When I compare AllMusic to Last.fm, it's obvious they’re totally different beasts. I’m not bashing Last.fm for that, though—those two sites have completely different vibes, different concepts, and different ways of actually pulling it off. The whole point is you can't go into Last.fm expecting an encyclopedia, and that doesn't mean it isn't informative. In fact, it really is.

So, I’m definitely not expecting to hunt down a perfect tracklist for an album on Last.fm Help!. For stuff like that, I hit up Wikipedia first, or maybe some specialized music sites like AllMusic. But if I stumble upon a band—whether they’re massive superstars or some total nobodies—and I want to dive in and see what they're about, Last.fm is my go-to. It’s hands down the best for seeing what people are actually listening to because the data sample is huge and high-quality. I won't totally ignore the ratings and reviews on AllMusic or whatever, but they aren't my primary tool for that specific purpose.

Bottom line? Last.fm is incredibly handy if you actually know what you want from it and understand what the site is designed to do. But if you go looking for something it wasn't built for, you're gonna be disappointed. And yeah, treating it like a massive musical database of facts is exactly how you end up frustrated. It was never meant to be that, and it's never going to be.

Now, if we're talking about actual encyclopedias, AllMusic is unbeatable. Every other site out there focuses too much on one niche or another, but AllMusic covers everything and then some, plus they've got the reviews, whether you bother reading them or not. The only other thing worth mentioning is Wikipedia. I feel like way too many people write it off as being inaccurate right out of the gate, but honestly, it’s a rock-solid, precise site. Obviously, you won't find reviews there, but I’m not looking for those on Wikipedia anyway; I'm just there for the cold, hard facts. Plus, it's pretty sweet that you can find links to external reviews and ratings if you feel like checking them out.

Last.fm has this one glaring issue—it just lacks a dedicated crew (at least from what I can tell, and if they do have one, they aren't exactly pulling their weight) to actually vet and clean up the data. Take Rate Your Music, for instance; users there input the data themselves. I’ve submitted a few entries myself, but those details don't see the light of day until a moderator verifies everything is accurate. It's the same point I keep making. Last.fm was a solid concept at its core, but until they get things organized, it'll remain a backup option for me. 🙂

And I'm done posting in this thread. 😵

silverpanther13 said:My main issue is that the radio rarely plays anything I actually enjoy—most of what comes on just isn't my vibe. Music blogs don't feel objective enough for me, I don't really use podcasts, and Last.fm is honestly a bit of a mess and quite confusing to navigate. I should also mention Rate Your Music, which is probably the closest thing to IMDb out there, but the problem is that certain groups of reviewers can be pretty obnoxious (kind of like how some people act here on this forum). They tend to give sky-high ratings to their favorite genres regardless of actual quality, which totally skews the rankings, though I guess it can still be useful if you know how to filter through the bias. As far as I'm concerned, AllMusic is objectively the best-organized music site on the web.

+ For me, it’s much more important to read reviews for albums I haven't heard yet, since I obviously can't listen to every single release out there, no matter how much I might want to. Once I've already listened to an album, I don't really feel the need to check what everyone else thinks about it.

Look, regarding the radio thing, I won't find the music I listen to on there either (which is why I never bothered listening to it in the first place)
and I don't think any reviews are going to help me much here... Honestly, the only way that works for me is digging through YouTube or looking up similar bands based on what I've been playing on my Last.fm account... and I can tell you for sure that I've found over 200 bands that way. My total count of bands I actively listen to—some more than others—is somewhere around 600...
Anyway, as for the genre I'm into, it's metal... mostly things like melodic death metal, metalcore, folk metal, and so on, not that I need to list them all because it doesn't really matter... but 90% of the time, it's Scandinavian bands...
Which basically means I've been stuck in a cycle of researching music for years now

I completely forgot to mention... for someone who listens to metal, there's this one version of IMDb... it's definitely the best metal site you can find, and you'll likely find 99% of all bands on it http://www.metal-archives.com/ plus plenty of other info you might be looking for

silverpanther13 said:last.fm has one massive flaw. They don't have a crew—at least none that anyone knows of, and if they do, they’re doing a garbage job—to actually fact-check and fix the data. Look at RYM, for example; users input everything themselves. I've submitted a few things too, but those entries don't even see the light of day until the people in charge verify the info is legit. This is what I keep telling you guys. The core concept of last.fm is solid, but until they clean up their act, it's just a backup site for me. 🙂

And I'm done talking about this thread. 😵

The way you log data on last.fm versus somewhere like RYM is night and day, both in how it works and the sheer amount of info being dumped in. On last.fm, there's zero option to suggest an edit that gets vetted before going live. Instead, every single user action hits the site instantly, stays visible to everyone, and just sticks. There's basically no way to reject a bad entry once it's up.

It leaves you wondering if data can even be edited, merged, or generally audited after the fact by someone in charge—like actual moderators. Usually, they just don't bother for whatever reason, and honestly, I don't even know if the tech is even built to allow for that kind of oversight.

I honestly don't get it—how is it still so hard to find a decent internet radio station these days? There are endless options out there covering every genre imaginable. If I had to spend my time hunting down similar artists or digging through reviews, it would be such a chore... luckily, I've stumbled upon some great stations—ad-free and with high-quality streams for basically any genre I'm in the mood for—so I rarely even bother with manual searching anymore. I mostly just stick to the radio.

It’s the same deal when you discover a new band or track and notice a specific blog covering them—if they stay consistent, it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on their future posts. There aren't many top-tier blogs left, but there are a few gems out there...

Anyway, here is a collection of internet stations that are ready to go in your favorite players.

frozenraven39 said:http://www.allmusic.com/ has basically turned into a clone of IMDb.
I don't see any user reviews yet, but who knows? Maybe they'll roll those out soon enough...

Well, looks like they added them after all. 🙂

There aren't many ratings right now, but once the numbers pick up, this could actually be a decent resource—maybe even the closest thing we have to IMDb ratings for the music world.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about them rounding off the scores—though maybe it isn't a bad thing? It's easier to digest, and honestly, rating things from 1 to 5 feels more intuitive than a 1 to 10 scale. But then again, they won't have their own version of a Top 250 list this way—not that I can say for certain if that's a good or bad thing 🙂.