AllMusic (previously known asAll-Music Guide andAMG) is an Americanonline music database. It catalogs more than three millionalbum entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information onmusicians andbands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994.[2][3] AllMusic has been owned byRhythmOne since 2015.
AllMusic was launched asAll-Music Guide byMichael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar, and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, ascompact discs (CDs) replacedLPs andcassettes as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings byLittle Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash".[3] Frustrated with the labeling, he researched usingmetadata to create a music guide.[4] In 1990, inBig Rapids, Michigan, he foundedAll Music Guide with a goal to create an open-access database that included every recording "sinceEnrico Caruso gave the industry its first big boost".[2]
The firstAll Music Guide, published in 1992, was a 1,200-page reference book, packaged with a CD-ROM, titledAll Music Guide: The Best CDs, Albums & Tapes: The Expert's Guide to the Best Releases from Thousands of Artists in All Types of Music.[5] Its first online version, in 1994, was a text-basedGopher site.[2][6] It moved to theWorld Wide Web asweb browsers became more user-friendly.[3]
Erlewine hired a database engineer,Vladimir Bogdanov, to design theAll Music Guide framework, and recruited his nephew, writerStephen Thomas Erlewine, to develop editorial content. In 1993, Chris Woodstra joined the staff as an engineer. A "record geek" who had written for alternative weeklies and fanzines, his main qualification was an "encyclopedic knowledge of music".[3] Allmusic developed a list of 1,400 subgenres of music, a feature that became central to the site's utility. In a 2016 article inTedium, Ernie Smith wrote: "AllMusic may have been one of the most ambitious sites of the early-internet era—and it's one that is fundamental to our understanding of pop culture. Because the thing is, it doesn't just track reviews or albums. It tracks styles, genres, and subgenres, along with the tone of the music and the platforms on which the music is sold. It then connects that data together, in a way that can intelligently tell you about an entire type of music, whether a massive genre like classical, or a tiny one likesadcore."[7]
In 1996, seeking to further develop its web-based businesses, Alliance Entertainment Corp. bought All Music from Erlewine for a reported $3.5 million. He left the company after its sale.[3] Alliance filed for bankruptcy in 1999, and its assets were acquired byRon Burkle's Yucaipa Equity Fund.[4]
In 1999, All Music relocated from Big Rapids toAnn Arbor, Michigan, where the staff expanded from 12 to 100 people.[3] By February of that year, 350,000 albums and two million tracks had been cataloged. All Music had published biographies of 30,000 artists, 120,000 record reviews, and 300 essays written by "a hybrid of historians, critics, and passionate collectors".[8][9]
In late 2007, AllMusic was purchased for $72 million byTiVo Corporation (known as Macrovision at the time of the sale, and as Rovi from 2009 until 2016).[10] In 2012, AllMusic removed all ofBryan Adams' info from the site per a request from the artist.[11]
In 2015, AllMusic was purchased by BlinkX, later known asRhythmOne.[12][1] The AllMusic database is powered by a combination ofMySQL andMongoDB.[13]
The All Media Network produced theAll Music Guide: The Definitive Guide (at first released asThe Experts' Guide),[3] which includes a series of publications about various music genres. It was followed by theRequired Listening series, and Annual guides.Vladimir Bogdanov is the president and the main editor of the series.[14]
All Music Guide: The Definitive Guide to Popular Music (1st edition: 1992, 2nd ed: 1994, 3rd ed: 1997, 4th ed: 2001, 5th ed: 2008)
All Music Guide to Classical Music: The Definitive Guide to Classical Music (2004)
All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music (1st ed: 1997, 2nd ed: 2003)
All Music Guide to Electronica: The Definitive Guide to Electronic Music (2001)
All Music Guide to Hip-hop: The Definitive Guide to Rap & Hip-hop (2003)
^Erlewine, Michael; Bultman, Scott (1992).All Music Guide: The Best Cds, Albums & Tapes : The Experts' Guide to the Best Releases from Thousands of Artists in All Types of Music. Backbeat Books.ISBN978-0-87930-264-1.OCLC27307106.
