What is unique about this music database?

Unlike other music databases...
  1. ... it provides truly independent opinions, and from a historical perspective. I am a cultural historian (I teach history of knowledge), not a "fan". For example, i do not promote all recordings (or films) as masterpieces. As a matter of fact, i am aware that the vast majority of recordings and films 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. (I find way too many webpages, especially on Wikipedia, that have obviously been "fine tuned" according to the desires of the musician. Basically a lot of bios and reviews on the Web are simply becoming press releases by the musicians themselves).
  2. ... it is not a trick to sell you music. 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 or the page takes forever to download because it has to connect to the infamous ad server. My pages on music, cinema, etc have content (often a lot of content). Advertising is confined to a handful of pages and only to static boxes hosted on my server.
  3. ... 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 twelve books on music. This website is not a fan site devoted to one or a few bands, but a comprehensive music database that already covers more than 7,000 musicians of all musical genres.
  4. ... it does not provide catch phrases that music labels can use in their marketing campaigns. The vast majority of critics are more interested in getting free promos from labels than in 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 music.
  5. ... it is written by only one person (thus the very unimaginative domain name) which means that uniform criteria are applied to all recordings and musicians, whereas most online magazines are written by multiple reviewers (making it difficult to tell what one reviewer's "masterpiece" means for another reviewer)
  6. ... 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
  7. ... it does not require the "latest version" of this or that browser or the latest version of this or that awful operating system or the latest version of this or that plug-in. It is coded in plain HTML. Maybe not the most elegant of graphical designs, but it works with every browser and every computer. I don't ask you to spend money on a new computer in order to read my pages
  8. ... 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.
  9. Yes, i like colors. No, there is no color code. I like bright colors because they keep readers awake when they read my texts :-)
  10. A brief history of this website

P.S. Why many pages are translated also in Italian and some are only available in Italian? It is a tribute of sorts to my country of origin. I wish i could provide translations in other languages too. Unfortunately, it is really difficult to fit more than two languages on a webpage.
Note of 2020. After being criticized for so many years about the text-only format of my website, i started getting emails of thanks for the simple format of my website Apparently i am no longer the only one who hates websites with graphics and videos. I rarely go to a website to enjoy its cosmetics. I usually go to read something. I think most people who come to my website share the same attitude. A large picture or a video that starts automatically is an annoyance, not to mention the pop-up windows that ask you to subscribe/register. It used to be that the annoyance was only the advertising: but now website designers think that it is legitimate and even cool (?) to use the same annoying and distracting technology of giant pictures, autoplay videos and pop-up windows to enhance (?) their website's content. And now websites also have deploy these cookies that desperately try to steal information from your computer (i have an app that automatically cleans up the cookies on my browser and it's incredible how many get installed in my browser even by all sorts of websites). Bottom line: i visit very, very, very few websites, certainly a lot less than i used to visit 20 years ago. I visit absolutely zero websites about music: they are all full of graphics and videos that makes them slow and, IMHO, unreadable. And forget about websites of artists: they require the most powerful computer (or an infinite amount of patience) even for the simplest of visits. I'd rather read the printed art magazines (that don't ask me to upgrade to the latest browser, operating system and processor). Ironically, the web is a much smaller place for me today than it was in 2000. Ironically, i re-started subscribing to printed magazines because i greatly dislike their ridiculously slow websites, which remind me of the age of the dial-in Internet. As i type this, i'm trying to get the printed New York Times delivered again: their website sometimes doesn't load on my Android tablet, sometimes crashes my browser on my desktop, sometimes the links don't work. The paper version was so much easier to read. The online experience has deteriorated so much over the years. Alas, younger people will never know the difference.
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