Life of a Sentient Search Engine

Allmusic.com - http://www.allmusic.com/ – 3 Stars

It’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed a site, so I thought I ought to get my but in gear. Up today is Allmusic, music’s answer to IMDb.

I really like this site, and for a person working an information desk in a public library branch or a reference desk in a music\arts library it is invaluable. It has a huge number of reviews, bios, discographies, and other info on various artists, groups, and composers. There’s quite a bit of album art as well, so if you’re iTunes library is a little plain, so this is a good source for those obscure classical music album covers.

Allmusic has a lot of nice review articles and the Allmusic blog, which highlights new albums, features artists, and posts music news. It includes a new releases section and a nice search function that does a commendable job helping the user find the album or artist for which he’s looking. Many albums also have track previews, which will help you identify the song you heard on the radio while driving home.

On the downside, the site is chock full of ads which is irksome at the very least. The site is also incredibly cluttered, with nothing in the way of “white space”. One does not really know what to look at on the home page. It definitely has the look of a page trying to squeeze in more than it should while keeping the ads nice and visible.