Asshole Alert...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
As you know, I provide a public service occasionally where I point out situations where musicians are being taken advantage of. Haven’t had to do this in a while (although TuneCore’s “Get My Money” boondoggle has been tempting me) but this here is a doozy, and needs to be addressed.
The site is AlbumCredits.com, and here’s the grift: it is owned and operated by AMG, the company that brings you the All Music Guide. What they’ve done is create a site that is a separate front end for AMG’s database, where you can pay for the opportunity to correct it. The image above is a screenshot of what I’m met with when I click the “Claim This Profile” on my own page.
So, for a cool hundred bucks a year, I get the opportunity to fix AMG’s database for them. This heaping pile of poorly collected, badly managed pig shit, that hasn’t been worth fuck all since the Internet was knee-high to a short goat, will finally allow corrections, but only if you pay.
Seriously, this company can’t go out of business fast enough. I would be sorely disappointed if any of you fell for this. (Look at it this way: I was always right about TAXI. I’m right about this. Just trust me.)
35 comments
Oh, the number of times I've tried to get AMG to correct incorrectly credited releases that I'm a part of...
I don't even care any longer. I have a website that I can update and make certain is correct and if there's a problem, I know the "webmaster".
scam is as scam does.
Can we all pay $12.95 for one month to provide them a bunch of ludicrously wrong information? I would like to confirm that Pink Floyd wrote Enter Sandman in 2003 with the help of Katy Perry and Tom Waits.
Someone should claim the deadmau5 and Skrillex pages and conflate them.
But @zombiestomper, it's AMG. It probably already says that.
-CR
"This heaping pile of poorly collected, badly managed pig shit, that hasn't been worth fuck all since the Internet was knee-high to a short goat, will finally allow corrections, but only if you pay."
That made me almost shoot hot coffee out of my nose.
One of my engineer-type friends has the misfortune of sharing a name with a member of Flesh for Lulu. Poor bastard doesn't even have his own page for AMG to fuck up.
I did some googling for chris's TAXI thoughts but came up empty handed. Would like to know what I missed.
@stretta: I think it was in the previous iteration of AI; I've said them in person or private conversation often enough, in any event. My issues with TAXI are manifold. In no particular order:
1. If you're good enough that TAXI can do something for you, you're good enough to not need TAXI. If you're not good at what you do, then TAXI will happily take your money anyhow.
2. There is no such thing as an A&R guy that sits at his desk and thinks "wow, I hardly have any demos coming in. I wonder if that next boxload from TAXI will come soon, because I really need someone to sign!!!!" If you're looking for a deal with a major, there's only two people that can make that happen, and that's a manager or an entertainment lawyer (and more likely both.) If you're looking for a deal with an indie, then the usual method (networking) will suffice. The former works on percentage. The latter is free. Neither costs up front.
3. Placements in movies and games come from personal relationships. They don't come from TAXI. I can't say how you meet music supervisors, but generally it's the same way you meet lawyers, managers, and the guy that cooks burritos in the food truck. You go to where they are, walk up and say "hi," and be engaging and interesting. If you can't do those things, you have no business being in this business, unless you're very, very good. (In which case you don't need to do those things. See #1 above.)
A not-bad song or two wouldn't hurt, but I'm living proof that's not really necessary. If you're engaging, and willing to entertain, there's a place for you in this business. If you're not engaging, and you're not willing to entertain, then there's always that brass ring off in the distance, and TAXI will drive you towards it. That may seem cynical, but there are a lot of folks out there that will be glad to take your money and tell you that you have a shot. If you have to pay for a service up front, then you're being taken advantage of. The music industry works on percentages, not up-front fees.
-CR
Never seen this site so I'm guessing it's more of an US thing? Discogs seem to be used more often in Europe and it's free.
Overall credits can be an issue in this here age of tinternet downloads but as bleen points out, a website can help you with this.....
Couldn't agree more than with your sentiment of TAXI or any of those sites, they're just out to grab some clueless persons money.....
In a previous job I had the misfortune of having to use one of AMG's APIs (and I use the term "API" very loosely in this case) for fetching album art. So, in this 21st century world of web services and REST and buzzwords like that, they give you a raw socket to connect to and if you're lucky it'll stay open long enough to actually give you data.
They don't provide a well-documented API for filtering the data plus they are "helpful" and assume everyone has inaccurately tagged media so they'll provide results that only approximately match (i.e. a shitload of results for each match). Then they whined at us because our apps were making "too many" requests, even though I gathered it cost a small fortune for the privilege to make those requests.
Now, I'm not trying to make excuses for grossly inefficient programming but basically it appeared like they were making it really difficult to use their "service". They eventually relented somewhat and told us about an undocumented hack (not that they called it that, it was a feature) to specify multiple filter terms in one argument but it was clearly something that was never designed properly.
Basically, they're a big bag of lose IMO. IIRC AMG are owned by Macromedia to boot.
@johan: It predates Discogs by some years (and the WWW, for that matter). I don't know if it was started specifically for the info kiosks in Tower Records, but that's my first contact with it. (Wherein I discovered that they had used the worst review we'd ever received as a description of my band. Thanks, guys.)
So they've been on my shit list for about 18 years now.
-CR
just had a quick look at the albumcredits site - the little photo slideshow that runs on the homepage: the close up of the mixing desk looks suspiciously like a Behringer...
compared to the other photos, they could have chosen something better that at least doesn't have the cheap-ass fader caps.
I saw this years ago and I could swear it was free then, but I could never quite figure out what their game was.
Did people finally quit using AMG? There was a time when label peoples would look you up on there and quote it back to you like it was gospel. Really annoying.
bb
You can just email the Elders of the Internet.
They are all up on corrections.
I've been trying to get the assmongers at Allmusic to correct mistakes in my band's bio for what, 10 years now, and sadly countless other sites on the web use the AMG for their data, so it gets regurgitated over and over. I think the 'corrections' form on the AMG actually just immediately deletes the information you type, and is just there to make you feel better.
As for these new asshats, if you look closely at the FAQ on their webshite, it appears to not actually allow you to correct data already inside your AMG profile, only add additional data to it that will sit 'atop' the data that AlbumCredits.com pull from AMG.
However the most important point I noticed reading this protection racket's FAQ is this one - It says if you cancel making monthly payments to your subscription it literally undos the edits you have previously made, thus trapping you into paying forever if you want to maintain an edited profile. (but as I stated above looks as though they are only creating a new database that sits above the basic profile data from AMG).
If anyone signs up for this I will personally wring their neck.
"Q: What if my credits contain mistakes on All Music?
A: If your credits contain mistakes on All Music, those same mistakes will be present on Album Credits."
"Q: What happens if I sign up for a Professional Profile and then stop paying?
A: Log in and If you stop paying, your Professional Profile will revert to a Basic Profile and the updates and corrections you entered will no longer be included in your profile. If you later decide to begin paying again, those updates and corrections will re-appear."
I guess if you're going to go asshole, you might as well go full asshole.
We could pool a few dollars together and REALLY wreak some havoc...at least for a month or two.
Just sayin'...
I hate infotrolls. If you plan to start wreaking havoc, I'm in.
Nah, there won't be any of that, at least not on my watch. First of all, this company needs to go out of business, and giving them any money at all is sort of the opposite of making that happen. Second of all, it's kind of fucked up.
-CR
RE TAXI: I've been wondering whether the same general idea applies to Rumblefish...
That said I think it's fair to say that some "artist" types find it difficult to interact with "suit" types. Some are downright anti-social in fact. And self-promotion is an art unto itself. If not done right, it can totally backfire.
I guess that sort of brings us back to a) being really really good and b) garnering at least enough success to afford representation of some kind.
Reminds me of how consumer credit reporting works in the US. The credit reporting companies couldn't care less if the information on you is accurate, because most of those crappy companies that you can pay to allegedly fix your credit report are in fact subsidiaries of the same credit reporting companies that will endlessly regurgitate incorrect information about you. Conflict of interest, anyone?
People still use AMG? I haven't looked at that site in like 10 years.
@shamann WOW that is amazingly dickish. The mistakes will revert? Hahahhahahaa
speaking of lame
http://www.soundcloudplaysincreaser.co.uk/Buy-Soundcloud-Plays-Views.html
God, I hate that shit.
-CR
Ugh.
- c
A) You could easily game Soundcloud yourself for free since each time you play your own track it registers as a unique play (something I find irritating. Why would I care to know how many times I've listened to my own work?).
B) And is there anyone who thinks high play counts and generic comments on there are worth a damn, especially since Soundcloud's infrastructure appears to be held together with little more than optimism and a few rubber bands?
Wow!
I love the idea of buying "real" followers.
It reminds me of an old Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch...
Rich man to music teacher---"Integrity! That's a valuable thing; and I'm willing to pay for it."
The concept that people would pay to have a company pretend to listen to their songs....truly, there is one born every minute.
I like AMG because its comprehensive. Whats a good and comprehensive Music indexing site then, if not AMG?
@Cyphre: Just don't conflate "comprehensive" with "correct." My own page at AMG (and thus AlbumCredits) is about 50% correct. The other 50% comes from Gods only know where. Extrapolate that to virtually every other artist...
-CR
I'm signing up as Crandall and giving him credits on every Rush album in the 1990s as "Bass Solo Coach."
AMG is dumb.
- c
@synthetic: LOL dude, now THAT'S what I call comedy.
@Cyphre: discogs?
The only good thing we've ever gotten out of AMG is "Hollywood Steve" of Yacht Rock fame.
(well, he was famous before that, I guess, but not as much)
@Cyphre i've been a heavy user of MusicBrainz for a long time, and much prefer it. User edits are voted on, but unlike discogs, those edits actually go through.
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