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URL	allmusic.com
Commercial?	Yes
Registration	No
Available language(s)	English
Owner	All Media Guide (Rovi)
Created by	Michael Erlewine
Launched	1991
Current status	Online

AllMusic (previously All Music Guide or AMG; stylized as allmusic)^[1] is an online music guide service, owned by All Media Guide. AllMusic was founded in 1991 by popular culture archivist Michael Erlewine as a guide for consumers. Its first reference book was published the following year. When first released onto the Internet, AMG predated the World Wide Web and was first available as a Gopher site.

AMG headquarters is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.

Content[link]

AllMusic's database, which is licensed and used in point-of-sale systems by some music retailers, includes:

• Basic data: names, genres, credits, copyright information, product numbers.
• Descriptive content: styles, tones, moods, themes, nationalities.
• Relational content: similar artists and albums, influences.
• Editorial content: biographies, reviews, rankings.

AllMusic also claims to have the largest digital archive of music, including about six million digital songs, as well as the largest cover art library, with more than half a million cover image scans.

The AllMusic database is also used by several generations of Windows Media Player and Musicmatch Jukebox to identify and organize music collections. Windows Media Player 11 and the integrated MTV Urge music store have expanded the use of AllMusic data to include related artists, biographies, reviews, playlists and other data.

AllMusic is also used to provide catalog data, artist biographies, album reviews, related artist information, playlists and other information in the iTunes Music Store, Zune Marketplace, Zune player, eMusic, AOL, Yahoo!, Amazon.com and other music stores. AllMusic is also at the heart of the Naim Extended Music database used by the Naim HDX hard disk player.

Reviewers[link]

Reviewers include Greg Adams, Mark Allender, Jason Ankeny, Roxanne Blanford, Marisa Brown, John Bush, Al Campbell, Nate Cavalieri, Eugene Chadbourne, Matt Collar, Ken Dryden, Bruce Eder, Jason Elias, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Katherine Fulton, Jo-Anne Greene, Steve Huey, David Jeffries, Thom Jurek, Andy Kellman, Rudyard Kennedy, Don Kline, the late Cub Koda, Andrew Leahey, Steve Leggett, Jason Lymangrover, Scott McClintock, Greg McIntosh, Opal Louis Nations, Wilson Neate, Heather Phares, Greg Prato,^[2] Ned Raggett, Margaret Reges, Eduardo Rivadavia, John Phillip Roberts, William Ruhlmann, Tim Sendra, Michael Sutton, Jeff Tamarkin, Rob Theakston, Richie Unterberger, Joe Viglione, Sean Westergaard, and Scott Yanow.^[3]

See also[link]

• All Music Guide to the Blues
• All Music Guide to Jazz
• List of online encyclopedias
• List of online music databases
• Allmovie

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website

Willis Earl Beal is a Chicago born artist^[1] and musician.^[2]

Biography[link]

Beal was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois.^[3] In his early twenties Beal joined the US Army, moving to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Beal was medically discharged from the army due to intestinal problems. He then returned to Chicago where he worked at Sears Tower, following a five month hospital stay.^[3] In 2007, Beal moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here Beal spent some time homeless, and working low-level jobs, notably as a night-shift security guard. During this time Beal began to record music, leaving CD-Rs in public spaces around Alburquerque. Beal would also leave self-illustrated flyers around the town in the hope of finding a girlfriend.^[4] One of these flyers was discovered by Found Magazine who put Beal on the cover of their magazine.^[1] Found later released a limited-edition box set called The Willis Earl Beal Collection, which included Beal's poetry, artwork and a 17-song album.^[5] Through these flyers and the subsequent coverage in Found, Beal was contacted by more than 100 members of the public.^[6]

In 2012, Beal signed a recording contract with Hot Charity, an imprint of independent record label, XL Recordings. Beal's first single for the labels, "Evening's Kiss" was released on February 17, 2012 and the accompanying music video was illustrated by Beal.^[7] Beal's debut album, entitled Acousmatic Sorcery was released on April 2, 2012.^[8]

Discography[link]

Albums

• Acousmatic Sorcery (Hot Charity/XL Recordings, 2012)

References[link]

Citations

External links[link]

• Official site
• [1] at XL Recordings'
• [2] at Hot Charity