Popular Music > Online music resources

NZ Music News

• Amplifier
  Mp3 site featuring news & downloads
• Biggie
  Nightlife, urban culture and entertainment.
• Cheese on Toast
  News, reviews, pictures, videos, gigs
• Muzic.net.nz
  Local news, band info, discussion forums, album releases, gig guide
• New Zealand Herald
  This online version of the daily paper is updated regularly with high NZ content.
• Nzmusic.com
  News, reviews, discussion forums, band pages
• Official NZ music charts
• PunkAs
  New Zealand punk, ska and hardcore music resource.
• Radioscope
  NZ based music industry news-site. Local and international news, covering a broad range of music issues with particular focus on radio.
• SOUNZ
  Centre for NZ music

International Music News

• Allhiphop.com
  If you believe the web-designer, this is the world's most dangerous sites. For those with a flagrant disregard for over-inflated hype, you might survive to witness the latest hip-hop news; discussion forums; album reviews and video exclusives.
• All About Jazz
  Reviews, articles, artist profiles, how to build a jazz library, directory of links and more.
• Americana UK
  UK Americana - alt-country - anti folk - alt-powerpop - acoustic - activism.
• Arts Journal
  Emphasis on classical music, but covers general industry topics well also
• BBC Music
  Loads to explore here - up to date music news, album reviews, artist profiles, archived music shows all organised roughly by genre
• Blabbermouth
  Metal news, associated with Roadrunner Records
• Blues World
  International blues resource, made up mostly of links to other sites.
• Breakcheck
  B-boy site - forgotten how to do the icey-ice? Let them remind you.
• Dotmusic
  Pop and rock news from Yahoo & Launch
• E-Online
  Entertainment industry news including music
• Metacritic
  Useful site that links together album reviews (good and bad) to give a broader perspective.
• Pop Justice
  Giving pop the disrespect it deserves.
• Rapstation
  Hip-hop news, tv and mp3.
• Rockdirt
  Interactive news weblog - readers can add their own links to news sources
• VH1
  American cable tv music channel's news page

Streaming Music

• Last FM
  Last.fm is an internet radio and music community website. It keeps track of what music you're listening to and then personalizes a host of features based on your musical taste. Signing up is free, but you can pay a small subscription to access more features such as playlists, greater customisation etc.
• Wolfgang's Vault
  A huge archive of music memorabilia and live concerts set up by the late music promoter Bill Graham. Streams free concerts from Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, Frank Zappa and many others.

Databases

• All Music Guide
  Wondering who did that version of Okie from Muskogee? Need to know your Gabber from your Ambient Breakbeat? Also has biographical/ discographical information on a huge range of bands/artists. You can access this free within the library.
• All Movie Guide
  Sister site to All Music, provides detailed information for many films composer/soundtrack information etc
• American Popular Music Archive
  Contains sheet-music scans for American popular songs from 1896-1953
• Collected sounds
  Focuses mainly on independent female musicians, singer/songwriters
• The Internet Archive - Live Music Archive
  The Internet Archive is an online archive of web & multimedia resources. The Live Music Archive collects live concerts in a loose downloadable format (FLAC) from 'trade-friendly' bands and includes concerts from 'The Grateful Dead', 'The Smashing Pumpkins' & 'Ryan Adams'.
• Yahoo! music (lyrics page)
  Yahoo! has now partnered with Gracenote to provide the lyrics to over 400,000 songs
• The Covers Project
  A song database that lists both the original artist and the various versions recorded since.
• Ectophile's Guide to Good Music
  Guide to predominantly female and obscure musicians.
• Flavour of New Zealand
  NZ music charts from 1960 onwards.
• Music Research Guide
  Focuses on "web sites useful for music research by anyone from new students to professional music educators, composers, and performers."
• Ultimate Band List
  Large band/artist database with news, reviews, biographical info, mp3, message boards etc.
• Virtual music libraries

Gig Guides

• Cheese on Toast
• Loudmouth
• NZMusic.com
• The Package

NZ Record Labels

• Arch Hill Recordings
• Capital Recordings
  Phoenix Foundation, Flash Harry, Twinset, Earwork compilations...
• Dawn Raid Entertainment
  Deceptikonz, Mareko, Ill Semantics...
• Eleven Fifty Seven
• Flying Nun
  The Chills, PanAm, Betchadupa, The Verlaines, HDU, The D4...
• Involve
  Aspen, Jet Jaguar, Mandrake...
• Kog Transmissions
  Spread among several subsidiary labels, artists on the Kog roster include Concord Dawn, Shapeshifter and P-Money
• Loop Recordings Aotearoa
  Home of 50hz, Rhian Sheehan, The Black Seeds...
• Midium
  Avotor, Jakob, Day One, Meterman.
• Sony New Zealand
  Che Fu, Bic Runga, Brooke Fraser, Dave Dobbyn...
• Wildside
  Stylus, Paselode, Rubicon, The Accelerants...

For more NZ labels try:

• Music.net.nz's list
• NZ Musician's list