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December 19th, 2003

Record Label Sites

I often get really frustrated when I visit a record label’s web site. I’m usually looking for information on an older title, generally things like release date, track listing, etc. Basic stuff… sound clips aren’t usually necessary, just general information about something that label has released in the past. But more often than not, if the item hasn’t been released within in the last few years or the artist is no longer signed to the label, there’s not a trace of the album to be found.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a label’s responsibility to, at the very least, keep track of every album or single that has been officially released. Chances are it’s sitting in a database somewhere, so there’s really no excuse for them to not export it with a release date and maybe a track listing… even if it’s not one they’re promoting any longer, it was something they sold at one point, so there should be a record of it.

A few labels that do this well: VP Records (though their new search system offers more information, the navigation is clunky), Heartbeat Records, and Tzadik.

Tangentially related: Rlabels.com is a very cool site with a huge collection of record labels on the web.

Also tangentially related: a lot of times, record label sites have a poor search function, so I resort to doing a site: search on Google. Unfortunately, labels sometimes opt for Flash sites which makes it impossible to search their sites on Google for particular artists.

Posted in Television, Movies, and Music

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