Blue
Plate Special
Lounge music is back - and possibly already out if you're an avante-hipster.
According to the site's creators, Blue Plate Special is "a jump and
swing band from a cowtown you've probably never heard of." I hadn't
heard of the band either, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the Bachelor
Pad Music clips found on the site. This place is one long promotional, but
is punctuated with retro graphics and a witty bio. A Recommended Listening
page offers detailed liner notes, and mentions many albums, making it a
good reference for anyone looking to swing.-MP
B+
Ceolas
Celtic Music Archive
While it doesn't *look* particularly inspiring, The Celtic Music Archive
certainly delivers content. You'll find everything from song lyrics and
artists, to basic information about instruments used in Celtic music. There's
also a semi-current listing of Celtic-related events and concerts organized
by geography and by performer.-SK
B+
Everything But the Girl
Everything But the Girl is a post-punk duo that's been performing since
the early 80s. To navigate this site, you click on different backstage passes
for entrance to various areas. While this makes for a unique design, it's
difficult to determine what the "All-Access" area offers (answer:
band bios). There's tons of information about the band here, too: in-depth
bios, songbooks, photos, tour dates, etc. There's even a section I've never
seen on any other fan site: a page fetishizing musical instruments, complete
with pictures. It's only *slightly* creepy.-MP
B+
Geffen DGC Home Page
Aren't you dying for record company information on various Geffen artists
like Lisa Loeb, Sonic Youth, and Urge Overkill? Each artist's area offers
a way-long "official" biography, a discography, fan club info,
pictures, sound files, and video clips. These pages are well-designed with
nice graphics that look good despite their small size. However, no matter
how good the site looks, it's still corporate propaganda. The true masochist
can even download the "official" Geffen newsletter in the oh-so-convenient
PDF format - not like they have the money to translate it to HTML.-MP
C+
Global
Electronic Music Marketplace
The Global Electronic Music Marketplace is a good idea that fails to deliver.
When you connect to its home page, you're presented with a form on which
you type an artist or band name. When you submit the form, the GEMM server
searches its database for related keywords, looking for sale items and related
Internet resources. It works... sort of. Many searches of established artists
turned up nothing. -MP
B-
Mazzy Star
Spectacle
At first, the Mazzy Star Spectacle isn't much to behold. The colorful design
is dominated by a huge, washed-out image map of singer Hope Sandoval. If
half the size, Hope's image would still take forever to download. Then there's
song lyrics, a discography, a reprinted interview from *Rolling Stone*,
and audio clips. The best area, by far, is the photo page. These expandable
.GIF thumbnails feature Hope in all her attractive glory. The site's creator
even posted a photo of her with him - and I'm not jealous at all.-MP
B
Michael
Nyman
Who is Michael Nyman? As a film composer, he scored soundtracks for Peter
Greenaway's films. However, fans will tell you that he's a talented performer
and musician in his own right. Follow his discography. Read his composer's
notes. Check out his CD covers. Leave messages for other fans. Be mesmerized
by the many photographs of his balding pate. This page looks classier and
is better organized than most music fan sites. -MP
B
Nutra
World's Spudland
When MTV began broadcasting, its only good videos came from a single group:
DEVO. Now, even though this new wave institution has disbanded, its presence
still haunts pop. As you enter Spudland, a background filled with energy
domes (those flower pot hats) protects you from evil. Now you can look at
video stills mysteriously arranged to form some sort of indecipherable story.
Read weird Devonian writings from the back of a bootleg album. Feed your
DEVO fix with cheap, post-industrial garbage. This site could have weightier
content. It could have flashier design. It could be weirder. But it's DEVO.
-MP
B
The Alanis
Web
Alanis Morissette's career began long ago - she was the little girl who
had slime poured on her head on "You Can't Do That On Television."Now that show manages these fan pages. You'll find her very deep lyrics,
a voluminous discography, and an epic bio detailing her long show-biz resumé.
And what fan page would be complete without tear-jerking testimonials from
obsessive fans? Now get ready for the best feature of the site: You can
slime a younger, but still-annoying, Alanis herself. Way cool. Just push
a button. Too bad she doesn't let them do this to her on MTV. -MP
A-
The Mighty Mighty
Homepage
Dedicated to the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, this site features the usual reviews
and tour dates. There's also a well-organized discography that features
cover art, lyrics, and sound files. The fan confessions I read weren't that
rabid, though they were revealing. People either complained about skinheads
ruining shows, or reminisced about how cool the band was when it played
at local schools. All in all, a useful resource for fans, albeit slightly
uninspiring.-MP
B-
The Punk
Page
The Punk Page is a simple, easy-to-use resource cataloging punk stuff on
the Internet. It's not much to look at, but it organizes a gaggle of content
: old-school bands, new-school bands, punk record labels' home pages, skater
stuff, and punk-themed links. It's a good tool to find your fave bands and
zines, and maybe to discover new ones. Makes you feel like piercing your
nether regions with a snowboard.-MP
B+
They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants is a certifiably weird band. While this site doesn't
quite capture the group's oddness, it does offer cool fan resources: news
updates, tour info, links to lyrics, FAQ, FTP archives, and a link to a
MUSH that's partly modeled on TMBG product. The best part is Dial-A-Song
Online. For 10 years, the band has put a recording of demos, new songs and
assorted weirdness on a regular phone line that you could call for free
in the New York City area. While it's less costly to get this from the Web,
it does take longer. -MP
A-
Welcome to the Rykoverse
If it's rock, reggae, rap, funk, folk, jazz or world music, Rykodisc releases
it. Rykodisc is a specialty label known for its Zappa and Bowie reissues,
and even a few new acts, like Sugar and Morphine. Each artist has an area
with the usual corporate info and links to other resources. You'll also
find cool stuff like Zappa screensavers and special CD offers. It's surprising,
though, that a technologically adept company that supports CDLink and CD
Plus has such a lame site. Other than nifty screensaver files, content and
design is plain - and this gives me great pain.-MP
C+
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