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SoundUnwound is Amazon's Wikipedia for Music
Posted by Adam Pash at 8:00 AM on September 4, 2008
Web site SoundUnwound is Amazon's new music web site designed to provide comprehensive articles and information on bands, musicians, and their discographies and lineups. Mimicing Wikipedia's user-edited model, anyone can edit a SoundUnwound article; the main difference is that all changes are approved by SoundUnwound staff before it's included on the site. Beyond that, the layout of the site is interesting and will potentially provide lots of great information, allowing you to drill down into everything you'd want to know about the artist. Right now, however, the site feels a bit low in info, and considering the existing strength of Wikipedia as a go-to source for this sort of info, SoundUnwound's got its work cut out for it. If you give it a try, let's hear how you like it in the comments.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
Mike Hope
Posted September 5, 2008 2:38 AM
You can already do this at sites like Discogs and Musicbrainz.
http://www.discogs.com
http://www.musicbrainz.org
HellTempest
Posted 8:07 AM 4/9/08
I can imagine how annoyed these guys must get of approving countless grammar and spelling fixes, lol.
HellTempest
Kafka
Posted 8:55 AM 4/9/08
@ HellTempest: Outsource it.
Kafka
gotcheeze5793
Posted 8:39 AM 4/9/08
@HellTempest: Agreed. Good Idea tho.
gotcheeze5793
bigvince1981
Posted 8:38 AM 4/9/08
Now if only they could add a "tag my music file with this information" function and build out their database a little (ok, a lot), it would be great.
bigvince1981
gpzbc
Posted 9:13 AM 4/9/08
Might be a good source for album art?
gpzbc
muteboy
Posted 9:25 AM 4/9/08
Will they import Trouser Press? Discogs.com already does a good job with dance music. It would be good if this could create those great Rock Family Trees.
muteboy
surfmadpig
Posted 9:45 AM 4/9/08
kudos for the MIA search :D
surfmadpig
cheesebubble
Posted 12:59 PM 4/9/08
SoundUnwound has a lot of catching up to do in order to match Wikipedia. And I'm wondering about the accuracy of SoundUnwound's content since I've encountered incorrect info on Amazon many times (ie: track listing info).
cheesebubble
cheesebubble
Posted 1:18 PM 4/9/08
My god. I meant All Music Guide and not Wikipedia.
cheesebubble
Bruce_A
Posted 3:14 PM 4/9/08
@cheesebubble: Yeah, but AMG is a bit fussy and can be frustratingly vague at times. It's slower than snot, too. It doesn't time out nearly as often as it used to but I get the impression that they either need to do a massive overhaul of their infrastructure or buy some more bandwidth.
Bruce_A
Vanderwomble
Posted 6:52 PM 4/9/08
Is it really much better than AMG's Allmusic.com ?
Vanderwomble
itunes-guru
Posted 6:44 PM 4/9/08
Um, what's wrong with Last FM?
We could have something amazing if all this effort was put towards one universal database instead. Shame it'll never happen. That's entrepreneurs for you :(
itunes-guru
inbetweener
Posted 7:35 PM 4/9/08
Cool. I love M.I.A. (I've just about forgiven her for cancelling her recent London show... Grrr...).
As you say, given the availability of Wikipedia and particularly Last.FM I wonder whether anyone will really use this?
inbetweener
windmillninja
Posted 11:36 PM 4/9/08
I immediately fell in love with the embedded song previews on album pages and ability to purchase the MP3s right from the site.
windmillninja
tinyhands
Posted 12:01 AM 5/9/08
AMG is so slow I want to blow my brains out. But there's no other source as comprehensive (yet).
tinyhands
summerblink
Posted 12:22 AM 5/9/08
AMG _is_ supposedly doing an overhaul - at least according to a super-long survey i took for them a few months ago. my main feature request? inline mp3 sample listening. it's all the rage!
summerblink
jonny6pak
Posted 2:10 AM 5/9/08
While sources for music info seems plentiful, I hope this gets integrated into tagging applications as I welcome anything that makes library organization easier.
jonny6pak
windmillninja
Posted 11:26 AM 5/9/08
@summerblink
It's there, at least partly. The very first album I looked up (Death Cab For Cutie's "Transatlanticism") has Amazon mp3 sample streams linked right into the song titles.
windmillninja
xLoliPopx
Posted 9:08 AM 4/9/08
Too bad they don't have Jpop/Jrock artists info which Wikipedia does.
xLoliPopx