Sputnikmusic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sputnikmusic is a Web site archiving user-submitted compact disc reviews and music-related news articles with a membership of around 112,000. Members can rate their albums, discuss bands, create music lists, and in the process create a musical profile.
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[edit] History and Background
Sputnikmusic emerged from a CD Reviews forum that was established at MusicianForums to share reviews of Audio-CDs and Concert-DVDs. As the forum grew and grew, the decision was made to host the CD Reviews forum as an independent site detached from the forums, but still linked within the existing site network. The launch of the site was in January 2005, and since then it has grown steadily. It is also where visitors were redirected when the tablature site "MxTabs.net" was shut down.
Sputnikmusic is run by Jeremy Ferwerda, who is currently studying at Cornell University.
[edit] Development
Though Sputnikmusic has started as a simple CD Review site, it has developed into an extended music knowledge base.
Some features added since the launch in January 2005:
- Individual user ratings for each album
- Wiki-style band biographies
- Extended chart of former and current band members
- Music news section
- Dynamic user profiles focused on user's musical interests (along with a suggestion system)
- A music lessons system for guitar, bass, and drums (similar to the initial port over of music reviews)
- Journal section
- Sound-offs (short reviews)
- MP3s
- Recommended bands/albums
- A newsletter was recently launched
[edit] Music & Musician Forums
Formerly known as Musicianforums.com and part of the mxtabs network, it became secondary to Sputnik after the closure of mxtabs and the focus on the new review site. The forums, often called "MX" by its users, is the largest music-theme message board in the world. It currently has approximately 115,000 members, with over 432,000 threads and over 11,000,000 posts. Members can discuss a diverse range topics from sports to videogames to politics and movies, however music is the core motif throughout.
[edit] Notable Forums
[edit] Guitar
Arguably the most high-traffic section of the site, the guitar forum offers vast resources for beginner, intermediate and advanced guitar players. Thanks to a large userbase with supreme musical knowledge, information and advice about amplifiers, electronics, pickups, effects pedals, music theory and so on is also widely available. The guitar forum goes in cycles of being biased towards certain equipment and seemingly randomly changing its mind (e.g. Valveking amps or whether EMG pickups are good) There are also a lot of inside jokes, such as the infamous "scallopwned" picture or the "Minty pwnt" archives.
[edit] Bass
The bass forum is a notable part of musicianforums.com. The bass forum features a Featured Artist archive, containing detailed biographies of over 60 top bassists, as well as the Equipment Reviews section, with alphabetised reviews of a wide range of gear. These sections have been collaborative efforts by the members of the forum. Also worth noting is the Ask-A-Pro archive, where professional bassists answer questions and field comments about their gear, playing style and career, among other things. At present, Michael Manring, Jean Baudin and Steve Lawson have registered and answered many questions, and Victor Wooten has conducted an interview by email.
Also of note is the new Lutherie subforum. Opened in early May 2006, this subsection of the bass forum is already popular, with articles on DIY electronics, instrument building, repair and modification. This subforum is also shared with the guitar forum.
[edit] Drums & Percussion
Also a crucial resource for a percussionist, regardless of skill level, the drum forum offers many knowledgeable users and a regarded resource of information.
[edit] Rock & Metal
Easily one of the most popular forum on the site, Rock & Metal covers any band from the Beatles to Black Sabbath to Slayer. It has a vast database of featured genres, featured artists, and serial threads run by some of the more prominent members. These serial threads often focus on one or two artists to introduce them to the forum, but often they have more adventurous topics and are always great fun to read.
[edit] Punk
Forum for discussion of bands like The Clash to Against Me!. The punk forum also features a subforum, titled "Hardcore/Emo". Not to be confused with the pseudo-emo of Dashboard Confessional and Taking Back Sunday, the forum offers discussion of emo bands like Saetia or hardcore bands like Minor Threat.
[edit] Alternative & Indie
Forum for discussion of bands like the Smiths to Devendra Banhart to Velvet Underground.
[edit] Pop-Punk
Forum for discussion of bands like Blink 182, Fall Out Boy or the Ramones. Pop punk is also well-known for being the most friendly of the major forums.
[edit] General Discussion
General discussion of virtually any topic. Originally called The Pit, it was renamed to General Discussion and moved to the bottom of the General section as the original name was now perceived as referring to the forum's reputation as "a cesspool of hacking and spam" rather than a moshpit. Many users still refer to it by its original name, however. Despite several warnings from the administrator about the amount of flaming, spamming, and hackings in the forum, it was finally permanently removed in July 2006. Many of the threads remain in the archive forum for users to view. The forum was re-introduced on August 16th with far stricter rules. A user may only post in General Discussion if they have been a member for more than two weeks and have a postcount of over 100. Posts in the new General Discussion forum do not count to a user's total postcount. "30000" joke started here.
[edit] Politics, News and World Issues
Lifted from a subforum of The Pit to a forum in its own right, PN&WI (as it is known) is for the discussion of serious topics such as news items, morality and politics. Although religious topics were originally banned, the rule was never strictly enforced except when it suited moderators, and religious topics are some of the most fiercely debated, with the Official Christianity Thread at several hundred pages.
[edit] Video Games/Movies
Formerly titled Video Games, and then Video Games and Movies, and then the Media Center, and then Entertainment, Video Games/Movies is now a forum which only the aforementioned media is discussed, ie video games, computer related issues, television shows and film. The forum previously housed threads pertaining to other forms of entertainment such as literature, but this is no longer the case.
