Music Guide
And All That Jazz
Did you ever have one of those friends who just intrinsically knew everything there was to know about every artist ever? Not only were you light years behind on finding out about the next best thing but even if you were you to study day and night, you still wouldn’t know as much about the biz as your friend.
My brother was like that. I hadn’t seen him in ages, even though we lived in the same city, it was just hard to find time to meet up. But we finally got a dinner date sorted and I was on my way to pick him up. This was during my Blues phase so I had Muddy Waters 20th Century Masters Millenium CD playing when he got into the car. Now like I said, it had been ages since we’d been able to catch up so you expect the usual “What’s new?” questions to ensue. But instead I get, “Muddy Waters, eh? How do you know about him? Why are you listening to this?”
“Um, because I like it?”
“Right, so what was his real name? Why was he called Muddy? Who was his main musical rival?”
“Umm, what?”
“Well, why are you listening to this music when you don’t know anything about its origins?”
Now, I’ve known my brother my whole life and so I was used to this kind of behaviour. I just sat back, got educated on the life and times of Muddy Waters and then changed the subject. But, like every time this happens, I wanted to find a quick and easy way to learn as much about every artist so that I would never be caught short again. And for my fellow musically ungifted (I’m not challenged as I know more than the average bear, I’m just not an autistic savant about the stuff) I will today share some of the better music blogs, music news pages and just general obsessive-compulsive music-a-holic sites.
www.metacritic.com – this is your one stop shop for critical analysis of books, film, television, games, music and video. It gives you a good idea of when to spend your money and when to save it.
www.brooklynvegan.com – well, there’s no surprises here. This is a blog about music from a vegan in Brooklyn. This guy’s entire life is spent going to gigs and then telling you all about whose worth it and whose not. Love it.
www.soul-sides.com – music for rhythm addicts, as the slogan goes. This is the first of a selection of specialty sites you can check out.
www.discogs.com – a user built database of music information. It’s like wikipedia for the music industry. All labels, all artists and all the information you could ever hope for.
hype.non-standard.net – the hype machine is a blog about music blogs. This is where they keep track of all articles and hard hitting discussions on the subject of music. This is where you’ll find the music you never knew you liked.
www.sohh.com – daily Hip Hop news for you. Yet another specialty site.
www.fluxblog.org – a heavily followed blog about everything music. If it’s worth checking out it will already be listed here. But mind you, being a blog this is the opinion of one person. Get to know if your style matches theirs before you make it your bible.
And for those of you who are curious, I’ll save you the Google time. Muddy Waters real name was McKinley Morganfield. His grandmother gave him the name Muddy Waters to reflect his fondness for playing in the mud. And his big rival was Howlin’ Wolf. They competed for prime line up spots and for the song-writing attentions of Willie Dixon. Their warring also often entered into their song lyrics.
