How do you find useful music information.

[Snarfie]

Found this 1541 pages treasure in a thrift store. Besides it is informative it's quite funny to.

Was for instance looking for Louis Armstrong information. Guess from Alphabetic order first thing i found was information about his second wife Lil Armstrong describing she was not much of a piano player.

ChatGPT had a bit different opinion regarding here piano skills.
If you choose for "Others" or "Internet in general like forums" let us know your source(s)

 

[Galliardist]

I noticed the poll.
Firstly, it should have allowed us to vote for multiple options - I use all the options except ChatGPT, and some others as well (friends' recommendations, old newspaper reviews, occasionally the information in streaming service reviews is useful). I'm not sure whether Wikipedia and Discogs shouldn't be separate choices in a poll either.

Also, while I don't normally criticise English on this forum (it being international, after all) it may be a good idea to spell "useful" correctly - one l - in a poll title.

This is a great topic for a thread though!

 

[Snarfie]

I noticed the poll.
Firstly, it should have allowed us to vote for multiple options - I use all the options except ChatGPT, and some others as well (friends' recommendations, old newspaper reviews, occasionally the information in streaming service reviews is useful). I'm not sure whether Wikipedia and Discogs shouldn't be separate choices in a poll either.

Also, while I don't normally criticise English on this forum (it being international, after all) it may be a good idea to spell "useful" correctly - one l - in a poll title.

This is a great topic for a thread though!

Did activate multiple options. My thoughts were there are so many sources to get music information it is not possible to use them all for a poll so had to make a choice. Did add Discogs and Wikipedia. Hm can't change usefull in the poll header.

 

[bluefuzz]

Did activate multiple options.

I voted for all of them except ChatGPT simply because I've never used it for music info although I could perhaps use it in the future. I most often use Allmusic.com for general info but that isn't in the poll. Depends a lot on what exactly I'm looking for ...

 

[Barrelhouse Solly]

Found this 1541 pages treasure in a thrift store. Besides it is informative it's quite funny to.

View attachment 400442

Was for instance looking for Louis Armstrong information. Guess from Alphabetic order first thing i found was information about his second wife Lil Armstrong describing she was not much of a piano player.
View attachment 400443



ChatGPT had a bit different opinion regarding here piano skills.
If you choose for "Others" or "Internet in general like forums" let us know your source(s)

View attachment 400444

Lil Hardin may be the only person to record playing piano with both Louis Armstrong and Peetie Wheatstraw.

 

[TunaBug]

Interesting set of questions. I suspect that which people choose says more about what information they want than how they find it. At least for discogs: if you're trying to find which release of an album to buy, or pricing information, then discogs is useful. But it's not the place if you're interested in bumping into Lil Armstrong. Perhaps discogs is OK if you're trying to find a discography for an artist, but personally I start with Wikipedia for that.

My playback is done through LMS and I have found the Music & Artist Information plugin to be interesting reading. I think it just pulls its content from Wikipedia, maybe another site or three, but it's being read because of where/when it's presented. If I was a Roon user then I would probably make similar use of the info it presents.

Re ChatGPT: I don't trust any information from there. But, more generally, it's hard to avoid AI summaries now that Google search results start with that. I don't trust it for accuracy, but it can be a source of clues. G's AI summaries at least have the benefit of links to source material. ChatGPT on the other hand is just a homunculous with good grammar.

 

[Waxx]

I read/see blogs/vlogs and listen to certain dj's or podcasters, i read fora and social media, but i get most new music by going to concerts or just by knowing some artists, labels and distributors. And they often also point me to other artists and labels that i don't know yet. Radio, mostly internet radio or local underground stations is also an important source. Mainstream FM is certainly not. It used to be to arround the birth of mainstream internet (arround 1998-99 in our region). I'm also a radio broadcaster since 2001 (internet and FM) and a (at times popular underground) dj and get a lot of promo in the genres i broadcast or dj. The active dj career is a bit dormant, but i still get a lot of promo. Once you're in certain lists a lot of free (but not always good) music comes your way.

But i may not have a very mainstream music taste, it's all over the place and mostly in the darker side alleys of music, not on the main road....

 

[Timcognito]

Roon
AllMusic.com

But i may not have a very mainstream music taste, it's all over the place and mostly in the darker side alleys of music, not on the main road....

KFJC 89.7FM

 

[Waxx]

Roon
AllMusic.com

KFJC 89.7FM

Not that dark alley, more this side...

 

[Timcognito]

Not that dark alley, more this side...

Search "dark" or best descriptor in the link I sent and you will find tons of new stuff, much on Qobuz.

 

[Snarfie]

I read/see blogs/vlogs and listen to certain dj's or podcasters, i read fora and social media, but i get most new music by going to concerts or just by knowing some artists, labels and distributors. And they often also point me to other artists and labels that i don't know yet. Radio, mostly internet radio or local underground stations is also an important source. Mainstream FM is certainly not. It used to be to arround the birth of mainstream internet (arround 1998-99 in our region). I'm also a radio broadcaster since 2001 (internet and FM) and a (at times popular underground) dj and get a lot of promo in the genres i broadcast or dj. The active dj career is a bit dormant, but i still get a lot of promo. Once you're in certain lists a lot of free (but not always good) music comes your way.

But i may not have a very mainstream music taste, it's all over the place and mostly in the darker side alleys of music, not on the main road....

I listen offent to KCSM jazz radio listening to the music an than looking tru their tracklisting and or let Shazam find the the track(s).

 

[Timcognito]

I listen ofent to KCSM jazz radio listening to the music an than looking tru their tracklisting and or let Shazam find the the track.

Me too biggest jazz collection on earth is there. That's what they say.

 

[JeremyFife]

Radio more than anything: BBC 6 Music (digital station) or however stuff floats into my ears

 

[TunaBug]

I have to mention forums.stevehoffman.tv here. At some point I realized that I was wasting money on remasters. forums.stevehoffman.tv seems to be the best place to find information on re-re-re-issued albums and which one you want. It's all subjective, but is better than buying many copies. There's a lot of artist backstory there, too, but the site has so many posts that I don't use it as a general feed for discovering things, as opposed to a research tool.

 

[Snarfie]

I have to mention forums.stevehoffman.tv here. At some point I realized that I was wasting money on remasters. forums.stevehoffman.tv seems to be the best place to find information on re-re-re-issued albums and which one you want. It's all subjective, but is better than buying many copies. There's a lot of artist backstory there, too, but the site has so many posts that I don't use it as a general feed for discovering things, as opposed to a research tool.

Last week i was looking at SH for the remasters from David Bowie Station to Station an Low was quite informative.

 

[Snarfie]

Interesting set of questions. I suspect that which people choose says more about what information they want than how they find it. At least for discogs: if you're trying to find which release of an album to buy, or pricing information, then discogs is useful. But it's not the place if you're interested in bumping into Lil Armstrong. Perhaps discogs is OK if you're trying to find a discography for an artist, but personally I start with Wikipedia for that.

My playback is done through LMS and I have found the Music & Artist Information plugin to be interesting reading. I think it just pulls its content from Wikipedia, maybe another site or three, but it's being read because of where/when it's presented. If I was a Roon user then I would probably make similar use of the info it presents.

Re ChatGPT: I don't trust any information from there. But, more generally, it's hard to avoid AI summaries now that Google search results start with that. I don't trust it for accuracy, but it can be a source of clues. G's AI summaries at least have the benefit of links to source material. ChatGPT on the other hand is just a homunculous with good grammar.

Last week i was trying to find out which Vinyl pressing i own from David Bowie - Station to Station on discogs i found out a first pressing unfortunately sleeve is not in mintcondition. Gave it to my 28 year old daughter who bought a Turntable which i sold already end 80ties ( no regrets)

 

[Snarfie]

Me too biggest jazz collection on earth is there. That's what they say.

Truly a treasure of Jazz information an not distracted by adds.