Is anybody familiar with the Internet Movie Database? It is the most popular movie-related website online (57 million visitors a month). It includes just about all you would want to know about every movie, TV show, short film, video game, tv movie, or miniseries ever made. It also includes information on every personality involved in the film (actor, writer, director, crew, etc.), as well as each individual's own resume of every film they have been involved with. The site also includes trivia, box office info, awards, trailers, memorable quotes, message boards, and an opportunity to rate the film on a 10 star scale. From this, you are able to see the average rating for the film (as well as the Top 250 highest-rated films).

By point is...I think they need something like this but for music. There are some sites that include elements (Acclaimed Music, All Music Guide, Rate Your Music), but nothing that combines everything. We need a site that includes a database to all albums and songs ever recorded, every person involved in the music industry and their resumes, opportunities to rate songs and albums, sales information, trivia, song lyrics, awards, as well as critics' lists (like the ones listed here on Acclaimed Music). Also perhaps a way of buying all the music from the same site? I think that Apple (iTunes), All Music Guide, IMDB, Acclaimed Music, et al, need to get together and create what could be one of the most popular websites in the world.

What do you think of this idea?

Have you ever taken a look at Discogs.com? That site is pretty close to IMDB and has a marketplace. It's not very pretty but it does what you are asking for.

it could be done well and it could be done poorly.

to be honest, i'm quite happy to get recommendations from AM, band info from wikipedia, track picks from allmusic, and anything else from a google search.

the best thing about AM is there's no bias. track picks would be nice, as would some of the other features, they would introduce bias to some degree. on top of that, extra features means more time, and more time costs money, and countering these costs can only be done with flashy pop up ads. as much as i want henrik to make money from this fantastic website, i'm glad those pop-up ads aren't found here.

one feature that i would like to see on AM is a simple track list for the acclaimed albums when you click on them, and maybe what album a song can be found on when you click the acclaimed songs. any support for that idea?

I think that would be nice or at least a direct link to the All music or Wikipedia page next to the album or song.

Good suggestions, guys! Right now I need to focus on the coming updates rather than additional links, but in fact there are already AMG links from a lot of the album pages at AM.

If anyone wants to add links to AMG, Wikipedia, RYM or something else, just let me know and I'd be more than happy to send you an Excel spreadsheet for you to fill in.

Where AMG gives more detailed info about artist and album, I think RYM is more complete when it comes to releases and release dates.

And since links to albums in RYM are easier to generate, I could help you with adding RYM links for you, Henrik.

NOT A GOOD IDEA. MOst of the people that visit imdb are uneducated nobodies. If you opened a music version you'll end up with justing timberlake having the greatest album of all time. Most youth "Radiolisteners" have rarely even glanced at the beatles catalog, the;ve only heard the songs on there greatest hits "1" or the recently released "LOVE". It would be bad.

Lets face it, the people on this site are a rare breed.

Thanks for the compliment, Kevin. Since I never visit imdb, I must be an educated nobody!

I think John already answered Daniel's question by notifying that there already is such a thing as a internet music database: discogs.

I know a few other good sites for educated music listeners. Metacritic.com is good but a little cliquey. Woxy.com is pretty good, Questionable Content is a webcomic whose main characters fancy indie and it has a pretty good music discussion section of it's forum.

The problem with having having reader averages for albums is they tend to be really polarized. People only rate albums they really love or really hate. Or they'll rate an album that they think is okay but is really hyped and rate it lower just to bring down the average more. The average reader review doesn't tell you much.

Also with RYM ratings, how many people are judging an album on one or two songs or just by skimming over it? I know I did that and I erased all my data a few months ago and started rating singles and only albums that I've listened to in full. How many people have actually listened to all of those 1-2 star albums in full?

I'll offer to fill in some spreadsheets if there's enough support for the idea? actually, i'll help with anything if it brings the update closer.

Just to clarify a bit more so there is no offense taken by any.

Music is different than movies for. There are alot of great mainstream movies by mainstream filmmakers. There arent as many great mainstream bands.

Nickleback, 3 days grace, lincoln park, blink 18s, avril lavign lead the charts in my neck of the woods. So lets face it, I wouldnt let them eat a roadside shit outa fear that it might save there lives...lol

Most of the people that blof or vote on imdb, are just your average joe blow visiting to find some info on a movie they've seen recently or had recommended to them.

If its just a database thats kool, but can it be a communist database where we must first pass a music knowledge test to seak entry?....lol

John, the RYM ratings don't do much to me. Each person has a different taste in music, a different level of interest in music, etc. and ... as you rightfully mention ... a different way of rating. RYM has other qualities that make it interesting to play with.

They just need to fix the charts somehow because right now they are totally useless. Even when you look at genre charts it's pretty screwed up.

Yep, the genre charts is one of those nice features, that is, if it works properly.

There are some other software bugs in RYM visible. For instance, reordering any of the lists on rating (instead of the default alphabetical order) doesn't work properly: You get double entries where other entries don't show up anymore.

Well, over the years RYM has been getting more and more complex which obviously increases the likelihood of new bugs.