Piero Scaruffi's Musical Page

What is unique about this music database?

Unlike other music databases...

... it provides truly independent opinions, and from a historical perspective. I am a historian and critic (I teach history of knowledge). I do not promote all recordings as masterpieces. As a matter of fact, I am aware that the vast majority of recordings are just about mediocre and very few deserve recognition (even fewer deserve your money). Musicians are often offended by my critiques and their publicists often complain, but that does not change the merits of their recordings, and therefore my assessment of those recordings.
... it is not a trick to sell you CDs. I do not flood your screen with banners and all sorts of advertising. I know it is very annoying when you select a page and suddenly an ad pops up on your screen. My pages on music, cinema, etc have content (often a lot of content). Advertising is confined to a handful of pages.
... it is written by someone who is relatively competent and unbiased. I have been writing for more than 30 years. I am the author of nine books on music (latest "A History of Rock Music", 2003). This website is not a fan site devoted to one or a few bands, but a comprehensive music database that already covers more than 6,000 musicians of all musical genres.
... it does not provide catch phrases that music labels can use in their advertising (the vast majority of critics are more interested in getting free CDs from labels than telling their readers the truth, and the best way to get on a label's mailing list is to help publicists sell the label's CDs)
... it is written by only one person (thus the very unimaginative domain name) so uniform criteria are applied to all recordings and musicians, whereas most online magazines are written by many reviewers (making it difficult to tell what one reviewer's "masterpiece" means for another reviewer)
... it exists since the world-wide web was born (it actually existed already in a different on-line format in the 1980s) and its existence does not depend on a business plan to succeed, thus it is likely to exist for as long as I exist
... it does not require the "latest version" of this or that browser

... last but not least, it is meant to download fast; even on old, cheap, slow machines with old slow modems. I do not assume that everybody has a superfast computer and a high-speed Internet connection. I avoid graphics and animation. I know that you are looking for information and not for a show of my graphic skills. I pack as much information as possible in a page that will be downloaded as fast as possible.

P.S. Why many pages are translated also in Italian and some are only available in Italian? It is a tribute of sort to my country of origin. I wish I could provide translations also in other languages. Unfortunately, it is really difficult to fit more than two languages on a webpage.

Back:

Main page
Reference:

History of Rock
Lists:

Best albums of all times

Greatest musicians
Database:

Bands of the 2000's

U.S. Bands of the 1990's

non-U.S. Bands of the 1990's