Progressive Music Discography And Price Guide -

Year of Release: 2001
Label: International Music Discographies, Inc. , dist by Megaworld Ltd
Catalog Number:
Format: CD
Total Time: 00:00:00

My anticipation for the Progressive Music Discography & Price Guide CD-ROM from International Music Discographies, Inc. was great from the moment that I was contacted by Megaworld, Ltd. about reviewing it. In compiling an issue each week, ferreting out a band's discography occasionally requires visiting that band's website or other online resources or consulting a book or two (though there aren't that many regarding progressive music). But a whole database devoted to discographies, pricing, and other data, all in one place, seemed very exciting. While I didn't realize it at the time, the man behind this CD-ROM is Terry Leonard, who runs the Recordmaster.com site, the online version of the CD-ROM, which also includes reviews ? about 50 or so from me.

The packaging boasts: Over 20,000 listings, over 4000 groups, Lyrics, Setlists, and Guitar tabs. All of these things are true, though admittedly, I didn't count each and every one to verify the first two. A random click through reveals that a small percentage of the listings have the latter group of items included. The discography for Pink Floyd, for example, is extensive, including bootleg, live, and tribute releases, but fails to include perhaps their best known album, Dark Side Of The Moon except in various live versions. Only the French version of Division Bell is mentioned. Oddly, I'd think that the core albums of artist would surely be there, and the bootlegs and such would have gaps. At least in the case of Pink Floyd, you'd expect Dark Side to be there (it is missing from the website database as well, though I have just send off the info.).

A drawback for me is that you can't fill in missing data. Looking at Yes' entry 90125 (among the first listed, as the titles are alphabetical), we see that the Musicians field is empty, the release Year field is empty. This I might expect from, in this case, the non-UK or non-US editions, much as a primarily German band, I'd expect that maybe that data is missing from the US version ? but here it is missing from all versions. Maybe it's me, but because I know this piece of data, and who played on the album, I want to add that info. One can't. I asked Spencer Kelly at Megaworld Ltd., the UK-based company that has exclusive worldwide distributor of the CD-ROM "Is it something that will be updateable as new entries are created?" I was thinking that perhaps part of the data was stored on the hard drive and online updates were possible, though I didn't ask Mr. Kelly that specifically. "Or do you plan on periodically issuing updated versions?" I asked, knowing that something such as this was moving target. He let me know that if there is sufficient interest in the series, a product that was created in the US (more in a moment), that updates were possible. But, since it is based upon the website, updating data there might mean that future editions of the CD-ROM would also have those gaps filled. There is a disclaimer included in the text of the introduction (a how- to found by clicking Intro) saying "This guide is not intended to be a complete work, but rather a work in progress."

There are some quirks to the CD-ROM. If you go from the artist listing to more information about that particular title, clicking return takes you to the beginning of the list, not back to that title. You can scroll through that artist's listings using the buttons on the More Info panel, of course. Or even scroll through the whole thing that way. But, if you forget and click back to Main (the artist listing) you've got to run your search again, or scroll down the listing using the scroll bar. However, if when in the More Information panel you click on the song title, clicking back to Main will keep you on that entry, but not always.

As a sometime application designer myself, I was bothered that the tops of the tabs were covered by the title bar and that resizing didn't fix the layout, but the buttons worked. And I've encountered my share of software that was buggy as heck and didn't even do that much -- work. Speaking of working, you can sort the main list by Artist, Title, Label, Country and Format. And you can also filter the data down to search for specific things, like for a specific artist, country, format, year and more. Though, because Year is an often-blank field, you won't get the same return of results as looking at the whole list and just using the search to find that section of the listing. A neat feature is that you can find a particular song and see what albums that song appears on. So, since I just wrote the Amon Düül review that appears here as well, let's use "Wolf City" since it's short to type ? oh, but you can't type in the song, only scroll down a list for it. But, we do find "Wolf City," and after double clicking, we get a filtered result set. Now, admittedly some records don't have the track listing either, so this isn't a complete result set, but over time that will get more and more useful. Click on one of the listings in the subset, choose More Information, and get more info on that release. You can use the back and forward buttons to scroll through the result set, and you're notified as to when you reach the beginning or end of the result set.

Similarly, if you're looking to see how prolific a certain performer is, you can search by musician, though again, you can't type in the name to search through the list, you must scroll. I'll pick Tony Levin as my example, since I know he qualifies as prolific. By the way, the artists are alphabetical by first name rather than the more conventional last name, but since the data is stored in one field (rather than one for last name and one for first), this is understandable. And again, we get a filtered result set with an extensive listing, but by no means exhaustive. As I think this database predates his Waters From Eden (2000), that isn't included (though this edition has a 2001 copyright, I think the data dates from 1997). Surprisingly, neither is Thraak, the 1995 King Crimson release (his last thus far with the band).

The potential for the database is great. I'd like to see it become a fuller product, though, but for those few hiccups I mentioned, the listings are extensive. If you're not too detailed oriented, and just need to know a general overview of that artists output, including those he didn't intend (i.e. bootlegs), this will give you that, keeping in mind that that is not extensive and may miss out major titles by major bands.

By the way, as I think on this, I realize that this very website has still a lot of growing to do, so I don't fault Mr. Leonard for not having the be-all/end-all database, yet. Instead, I'd like to credit him for being off to a great start. I also need to credit Leonard with focusing on functionality first (even with that quirk) rather than bells and whistles ? function before form.

The website went to a pay-for-access/subscriber service sometime after this review was written; and the site does not seem to have been updated in some time (or perhaps that's just the free sample portion) - ed

Tracklisting:
OS: Windows 95, 98 or NT

Musicians:
n/a

Discography:
n/a

Genre: Other

Origin US

Added: April 10th 2004
Reviewer: Stephanie Sollow

Artist website:
Hits: 2247
Language: english