Music

By Stefan Sojka

TDK Music Pages
www.tdk.com/snv/snvcnt13.htm
The big tape manufacturing giant has put together a comprehensive site of product info, technical specs and the like, including these Music Pages, demonstrating to customers that it isn't just interested in selling blank tapes, but also what kind of music it's customers might want to illegally copy onto them. There is a music review magazine, "The Tracking Angle" with detailed reviews of a variety of recordings, and "Airplay", a showcase of unsigned bands and artists, with Real Audio samples of their music. TDK also list new releases from record companies each month, and feature many links and 'editor's picks' to help you decide what you like.
Verdict: Overall, a site worth bookmarking, although, when they describe Merle Haggard as "one of the greatest artists of all time, period", one wonders for which particular demographic this site is intended.
Net Worth: ***

CDNOW
www.cdnow.com
For those skeptics who are still trying to claim that internet shopping won't ever take off, take a peek at this little baby! The reviewer can't remember ever walking into a "real" record store this helpful and informative before. Not only do you get an incredible range of CD's, EP's boxed sets, video's, imports and specials, but there are pop-up descriptions of many recordings, suggested artists of similar styles and a full search facility. From this one site, you are linked to a lyric and fan info server (Ultimate Band List), and a detailed concert info site. A jukebox will play full songs for you as you continue your surfing. Not convinced? You must be a monarchist!
Verdict: If you own a record shop, SELL IT NOW!! Go get a job at CDnow. They are hiring.
Net Worth: *****

Firefly
www.firefly.com
Imagine a town where everybody attends different town meetings and parties based purely on their movie and music tastes. This is that town. Yes, it's a virtual community virtual community, using an intricate statistical formula to analyse your tastes (as you tell it) and hook you up with "like minded" people. It's free to enter, once you navigate the registration protocol. The more you tell firefly about your tastes, by rating bands and movies from one to seven, the more chance you have of getting to chat, hang out with and basically have a jolly good time with your new-found buddies. The whole concept is quite clever and surely a glimpse into the way we will meet each other in the future. Oh yes, and you can buy stuff, too.
Verdict: If your life revolves around popular culture, this is your town. If not, click the hell outta here!
Net Worth: ****

TimeLife
www.timelife.com
TimeLife product marketing department brings you all those compilation CD's, documentaries and how-to books you crave after seeing one too many TV commercials. Hit's of the 80's (oh yeah!), Best of Broadway, Classic Classical Classics. You know the deal - recipe books, animal documentaries and war stories. The site is simple and well done with three frames on the left for books, music, and films, but many of the products have no links to information pages. You would expect a far more finished site than this from such a major company. Maybe they still see TV and mail order as the best way to get their products out there.
Verdict: It's time for Time-Life to get a life - on the net, that is.
Net Worth: **

Cleopatra
www.hallucinet.com/cleopatra/cleopatra.html
Cleopatra, or is it Cyberden? Or is it Hallucinet? Or is it Hypnotic? It's all a bit confusing here as to what is what, but if you just dig around here a bit, you'll find a very large family of sites all under the hallucinet domain catering to the more underground/gothic/industrial tastes. There is more music here to sample than bats in a very big belfry. Order online, get all the club and tour info, and scour news and new releases for the particular freaky musical ensemble you enjoy. You can even submit your own band's info and music. The look of the site(s) is varying in standard, but you get the feeling there are a lot of dedicated people working on making this domain happen. Be warned, you may get lost here for days on end wading through the mire, but if you are the walking dead, you may enjoy the exercise. A huge order form tempts you to spend up big.
Verdict: Gothic / Industrial paradise, if that isn't too much of a contradiction in terms.
Net Worth: ****

Sheet Music Online
www.sheetmusic1.com
A nice music professor dude and his buddies, with a vision of net power and a keen interest in all things musical, have created this rich music resource where you can find free material along with a wide range of well-priced goods of musical import. Sheet music of all styles, along with teaching materials and a plethora of goodies are all available right here online. Downloadable scores are in Adobe Acrobat format, but if you order them they will be sent to you on processed tree corpses. Though the good old professor shows little eye-candy manufacturing prowess here, the sheer wealth of available substance here makes the boring layout easy to overlook. Teachers especially will find a host of goodies to pad out the lesson plans. There is music here for everyone!
Verdict: Dough - spend here on your visa card, Ray - of musical sunshine to light your life, Me - the reviewer recommends this site, Far - up your bookmark list it comes. So - go check this baby out, La - la la la la la la, T - for Terrible design, but you will still fork out your Dough!
Net Worth ****

Columbia House
www.columbiahouse.com
Sex, drugs and rock and roll. We need all three to live, and so they are all marketed kinda the same. Give us a tease, a taste, a sample and we come back for more brandishing hard earned dollars to satiate our bottomless pit of desire for hedonistic pleasure. These music pushers understand this bizarre human trait and so serve up a cocktail of knee-high boot clad, mini-skirted, fish-net stockinged, high-grade, uncut music to get us hooked. Its a record club. The tease is 11 free CD's, conditional upon joining and promising to keep coming back to the dealer for more. The range is a 10,000 plus selection, complete with real audio samples of some for you to snort, "SPIN" magazine reviews to taste, and album cover pics to turn you on. It's dressed up very nicely and is well worth inspecting, but unfortunately you need to buy an airfare to North America to get the free CD's.
Verdict: It's only a matter of time before Columbia puts a mirror down in Australia so we can sample the goods too. Keep an eye out on your street corner.
Net Worth: ****

Pepsi
www.pepsi.com/highroad/backstreet/bakstret.html
Drug manufacturer Pepsi understand, like Columbia House, the need we all have to gratify primal urges and suppress fears. The multi-million dollar marketing team has served up a pseudo culture to help us decide what our personalities should be as we guzzle gallons of stimulant to snap us out of our sad pre-millennium depression. It's pretty insulting to think that they think we need our musical tastes dictated by a drug company, but they do it so well!! We just click away zombie-like learning what will make us happy and hoping for some biographical information of famous people and style tips we can share with our peers and keep us feeling like not Kurt Cobaining ourselves. When they use words like "somethin'" and "movin'" we feel understood. Those pepsi dudes, man, they are so hip! The site does look mighty fancy, although you will get kinda lost in an ever-shrinking frame maze. This is a music review. Go see the rest of the site for all kinds of futuristic whiz-bang fandangled highly creative drug pushing.
Verdict: It's hip, it's cool, it's fast, it's stylish, it's spurious. You'll love it!
Net Worth: ***

iMusic Store
imusic.interserv.com/store
If there is one product, besides sex, that is commercially viable on the net already, it is music. It's easy to sample, it's cheap to freight, and it's easy to order and not too threatening to your credit card overdraft if you don't go overboard. Hence the growth of such sites as iMusic. A complete music cornucopia with everything from t-shirts to posters to chat rooms to live concert broadcasts, iMusic has the length, breadth, depth and advertising revenue to satisfy your cultural hunger. 200,000 plus CD's are buyable, including advance ordering of new releases. Club iMusic radio broadcasts material available iMmediately, it's kind of like walking into a supermarket with all the shelves packed with music and the "buy me" sounds drifting through as you push your trolley (mouse) around.
Verdict: You will be iMbued with an iMpetus to iMpulse-buy at iMusic.
Net Worth: ****

International CD
www.internationalcd.com/index.htm
After welcoming you in about six hundred different languages in a snazzy Java applet, this site offers a large range of new and second hand CD's from around the world, including out-of-print singles and collectables available through e-mail or phone order. A-Z listings in tables show a large range, though maybe not as large as some of the mega-shops, but it's more specialised and the second hand section is extensive and updated every day. This is the site to visit to find that old favourite you never got round to buying, or something that your local record shop said was out of print and unavailable.
Verdict: Bookmark it and put it in a "shopping" folder. You will use it.
Net Worth: ****

Alliance Entertainment Corp.
www.cheapmusic.com
Alliance seems to be a conglomerate of record labels and distribution companies, and have created a home for them all right here. It's a very navigable site with a map and standard column of buttons on most pages. There is a lot of money represented here, so the information is vast including reviews, industry news, company reports, search facilities, a trivia contest and much more. This site is definitely for the retailer and industry person, since the reviewer couldn't find a way to order CD's here, but there are over 250,000 recordings represented. Find what you need and go ask your local shop to get it in.
Verdict: If you are at all interested in the music industry from more than just a listener's point of view, this is well worth inspecting.
Net Worth: ***

EMusic
www.emusic.com
Emusic have set up a huge infrastructure on this site to allow massive amounts of information to be easily accessed and browsed. Track listing, catalogue details, style info, pricing, cover art, availability and an inquiry count of each CD are just some of what is available here. It's basically an on line catalogue with a lot more support for what you need to know than any unvirtual record store could supply. Once you have created a secure transaction account with Emusic, it's all yours. There really is too much to describe here in this review, so just go and see for yourself. The only letdown of this site is that it is so comprehensive, it has to be text based, so the graphic content is minimal. Well, you are after music anyway, that's where the bells and whistles will be, on the CD.
Verdict: A virtual ocean of music awaits you. Dive right on in and start ordering.
Net Worth: *****

CD Universe
www.cduniverse.com
If you are going to call yourself "CD Universe", you had better live up to the name and these dudes certainly do that. The site looks great (well, actually it looks OK), has the entire range of features a prospective consumer may wish for, including a link to their own music previews network, and an entire domain for sampling sounds. There are charts, an advanced search facility (of course), a newsletter you can subscribe to, and links to artist and fan sites, industry sites, email lists and internet tools. Whether you are into Death Metal or Scottish Pipe Bands, you'll find it at CD Universe.
Verdict: There are so many of these mega stores for music on the net now, but CD universe could be one you may actually be prepared to give your credit card details to.
Net Worth: ****

Name of Site: Music.com
URL: www.music.com
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Music.com! Yes, it’s the obvious place to look. Here’s the place to find the latest Top 30, check out the recent releases and do a little shopping on the side. “MP3s!” I hear you shout? Yeah, heaps here, with free downloads and a search engine to help you, uh… search. Links also take you to info on burning your own CDs, if by now you still need to learn. It’s the dot com gateway to commercial music heaven, which is perfect for audiophiles like us. - SS

Name of Site: AMG – All Music Guide
URL: www.allmusic.com
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Time to work that mouse and click on the ‘Bookmark’ section of your browser. ‘All Music Guide’ is your guide to all your favourite music and then some! Heaps of info here with samples and history galore. Not sure what you’re looking for? There is a search function that sure functions but the trouble is knowing where to stop! I typed in ‘John Lennon’ and spent the next hour pouring over the life and times, songs, albums, more songs and links to a gaggle of other artists that this name connected. Even a list of people who did covers of each of his songs! So much has been packed into the site, it’s hard to escape without a PhD in pure music. Check it out - see you in a year or so. - SS

Name of Site: Worldwide Internet Music Resources
URL: www.music.indiana.edu/music_resources
Load Time: Scorching
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: This site reminds me of the way the Internet looked in 1994. Simple blue text links and no images. Don’t let that stop you from taking a look around. This is an old fashioned portal to an extensive list of links to all things musical from Journals and Magazines, Newspapers and Periodicals, Groups and Ensembles, Composers and Compositions and so on. Each sub-directory is packed with ever more links to explore. This site is not flashy or zappy but it does the job. Long live plain text! - SS

Name of Site: Piano Nanny
URL: www.pianonanny.com
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: Apple QuickTime, Flash, Yamaha MidPlug and a piano or keyboard
Review: If you have done one too many Jimi Hendrix impressions and smashed one too many guitars, it might be time to turn to keyboards. What? Can’t play a note? Then boot up the old pooter and let the Internet come to your rescue. Learning to play the piano/keyboard is so much more fun when you go at your own pace, and this site lets you do just that. Each of the 34 lessons uses images and sounds to make it all so easy and the virtual Flash on-screen keyboard really gives the site that extra ‘oomph’.
Piano teachers everywhere are signing up for the dole! Who needs em? This site will never rap you over the knuckles with a ruler! This site scores an A# on the myxolidian scale. - SS

Name of Site: Kyle's Virtual Guitar Lessons
URL: www.supersonic.net/guitar/index.htm
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: Java
Review: OK, so you didn’t quite take to piano, so it’s back to your Jimi Hendrix impressions. Kick off with tuning up via the ‘Guitar Tuner’ page (click the mouse, hear the note), then get to understanding how to read chords and tablatures, before linking off to all kinds of guitar type software. Although it’s easy to follow and there is much to learn, I did miss the interactivity in the way of the sounds of chords and music such a site really needs. Only a minor beef, as I found this site to be extremely useful with plenty of interactive graphical guides. Well worth a twang. - SS

Name of Site: mp3.com
URL: www.mp3.com
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: How could anyone stray far from this site when thinking about music and the Internet. Mp3s have radically changed the way the planet obtains and listens to music. OK, enough of what you already know, what’s this site got? It’s got heaps! Yes, mp3s for sure, but click a bit more and find videos, newsgroups, top 40 lists and … wait for it… a singles site! Hey why not? Pick up your date while downloading a song or two. You need to register, but that’s a small price to pay for the huge spread of goodies this site offers. It’s the sort of place you’ll drift back to again and again, that is until they invent nq4s! - SS

Name of Site: The History of Rock - The Golden Decade - 1955 to 1964
URL: www.history-of-rock.com
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: Real Audio
Review: Who decreed that the Golden Decade for Rock was 1955 to 1964? Who cares? They were probably right anyway. Here’s a site that exalts that critical turning point in western culture. You want to study the history of early rock DJs then head to this site and see the original newspaper clippings from the time. Want to know about the guitar companies, radio and record (an old fashion media for sound reproduction used before CDs) companies or virtually anything from that era? Head for this site! My hat and coat goes off to the creators for the amazing amount of time and effort that has gone into this site. If you want to know the origins of the music that has held court for almost 50 years, don’t miss this site! 1955 to 1964? We are still listening to Rock and Roll in 2003! - SS

Name of Site: Free Sheet Music
URL: www.freesheetmusic.net
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Need a Map
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Free. I’ll say that again. FREE! Yes, I know that 90% of the Internet is free, but it’s always comforting to see that work in a URL. That’s where the comfort ends. While there is free sheet music in the site, somewhere, it doesn’t exactly jump out at you. Once you find it and if you can read it, your away. One feature of this site is ‘Create your own free sheet music.’ Huh? So kind of them to let us create our own free music! Again, it’s not that easy and you have to register first. This site is only for the desperate, sort of like the home school kit Lisa Simpson has in case of a teacher strike.

Name of Site: Lime Wire
URL: www.limewire.com
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Time to raid the web and download a tune or 20. To me, Limewire is the Napster of today. I wonder what the limewire of tomorrow will be? Not only mp3s but also realaudio, video, programs, pdfs etc. can be found using this system. All very well, but if you don’t have a cable modem, you can forget the videos and other large files. Limewire hooks up to thousands of other users all over the planet and searches their personal libraries for the tune you are after. Once found, it’s up to you whether you download it or not. How many mp3s are there out in cyberspace? How many tracks are there on CDs!?

Name of Site: The Rock and Roll Trivia Quiz
URL: www.quizland.com/numberone.htm
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Ah, the old trivia quiz – they’re everywhere. I soon found out how little all my friends know about the history of Rock and how boundless my capacity for useless information is. OK I didn’t get 100% - 50 years of trivia is a lot for anyone to remember. This quiz gives you four possible answers to each question and also lets you know how many thousands of other people have bombed out on the same questions. So, if you know the answer to ‘What was the first rap song to ever hit #1?’ or ‘What is the only song in the rock era to ever hit #1 twice?’ then here and come on down!! - SS

Name of Site: Free Sheet Music
URL: www.freesheetmusic.net
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Need a Map
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Free. I’ll say that again. FREE! Yes, I know that 90% of the Internet is free, but it’s always comforting to see that word in a URL. That’s where the comfort ends. While there is free sheet music in the site, somewhere, it doesn’t exactly jump out at you. Once you find it and if you can read it, you're away. One feature of this site is ‘Create your own free sheet music.’ Huh? So kind of them to let us create our own free music! Again, it’s not that easy and you have to register first. This site is only for the desperate, sort of like the home school kit Lisa Simpson has in case of a teacher strike. - SS

Name of Site: Lime Wire
URL: www.limewire.com
Load Time: Normal
Ease of Navigation: Walk in the Park
Plug Ins Required: None
Review: Time to raid the web and download a tune or 2,000. For me, Limewire is the 'Napster' of today. I wonder what the Limewire of tomorrow will be? Not only mp3s but also RealAudio, Video, Programs, PDFs etc. can be found using this system. All very well, but if you don’t have a cable modem, you can forget the videos and other large files. Limewire hooks up to hundreds of thousands of other users all over the planet and searches their personal libraries for the tune you are after. Once found, it’s up to you whether you are naughty enough to download it or not. How many mp3s are there out in cyberspace? Everyone on the Internet multiplied by their CD collection! - SS

Name of Site: ArtistDirect Network
URL: www.artistdirect.com
Plug-Ins: Yes
Navigability: Easy
Graphics: Heavy, Good Quality
Internal Links: 50+
Review: An all-in-one music superstore, fanclub and information mine, this site has grown from, or merged with, the very established Ultimate Band List, which over the years has amassed a data base of over 100,000 artists. With such informational pulling power, someone has seen the dollar signs and injected the business acumen to create a slick, content-rich and high quality music site, covering all genres and offering much more than just a CD shop. Besides having access to the key links, fan sites, lyrics and tour dates of a tenth of a million bands and artists, you also get a very active community of message boards and chat, local scenes and even classified ads. There is literally no stone left unrolled in this musical Mecca. Fans will never be left unsatisfied, with bucketloads of streaming video, audio, news and interviews. - SS
Rating: *****

Name of Site: Amazon
URL: www.amazon.com
Plug-Ins: Yes
Navigability: Easy
Graphics: Medium, Good Quality
Internal Links: 100+
Review: Take advantage of the well-established technology and information architecture of this numero uno book shop as they branch out into sound. Years of development have taught them a lot about how to make a good site. Easy searching, easy ordering, plenty of easy-to-read info, customer feedback that directly enhances the content (reviews, what else they bought), and a catalogue covering the entire musical universe. They even run Auctions of your collectibles, run their own charts, have gift certificates, editors choices, an efficient associate program, so you can sell stuff on your web site, and although they are a commercial entity, you can download and preview enough free music to almost de-Napsterize you for good. If you buy something, or want to, the help is close at hand to make it a smooth and pain-free process. Experience counts in a venture this big. - SS
Rating: *****

Name of Site: NPGonlineLTD
URL: www.npgonlineltd.com
Plug-Ins: Yes
Navigability: Easy
Graphics: Heavy, Good Quality
Internal Links: 15
Review: Prince is the kind of artist who has just been waiting for the Internet 2 come of age. His constant adherance 2 values of love, truth, world peace, unity etc etc R now realised as he connects his fans, shares his vision and challenges the authorities with "controversy" (remember that old retro hit?). He's even begun 2 trans4m the English language! Check out the 'groovez', 'vizualz', 'newz' and 'freedom', or tour the Paisley Park studio, read the inspired fan mail, dial 1800newfunk 4 happening grooves, or if U R really game, let the Purple 1 preach his vision 4 world peace directly from his "One Song" sermon. He takes music well beyond the pop charts, and the Internet towards where the pioneers intended... - SS
Rating: *****

Name of Site: Digital One
URL: www.digitalone.com.au
Plug-Ins: yes
Navigability: Easy
Graphics: Medium, Good Quality
Internal Links: 16
Review: An ambitious but very promising foray into digital streaming radio offers a cool range of styles and channels for you to tune into. By forming alliances with major service providers like Telstra Internet and Microsoft Streaming, and also turning every track of every playlist into a point-of-sale for the CD it is lifted from, they have a reasonable chance of survival in the Dot Com shark pool. A great aspect of this venture is the combining of high profile artists and unknown, unsigned bands. Anyone can send off their songs for inclusion in the playlists and will be paid if accepted. A furious grab for air space has ensued with a lot of new acts exposing themselves to fresh ears, and earning a little cash and respect along the way. Aussie rock is still alive and kicking, along with a few other hip styles. Choose a channel and groove on... - SS
Rating: ****

Name of Site: Warner Bros On-Line
URL: www.warnerbros.com/pages/music/index.jsp
Plug-Ins: Yes
Navigability: Different
Graphics: High, Good Quality
Internal Links: Innumerable
Review: Bugs Bunny could never have imagined how big his masters could have grown in the information age. Global giants Warner own almost everything and everyone in the entertainment world, so a quick visit to their web site will cover just about any act that has signed on the corporate dotted line and enlisted the power of the multi-national marketing machine to sell their wares. Flash is utilized, among other cool devices, to get through the mountain of acts represented. Search the superstar data base and check out clips, home pages, featured artists of the week, try the trivia game for big prizes and if you get bored, just turn on the TV, hire a video, get out your Lego set, GameBoy or Playstation and generally bask in the warm Warner glow of global entertainment. "What's up Doc?"... "You're brain just blew a fuse!" - SS
Rating: ****

Name of Site: All About Jazz
URL: www.allaboutjazz.com
Plug-Ins: Yes
Navigability: Easy
Graphics: Medium, Good Quality
Internal Links: 50+
Review: In contrast to the all-encompassing all-genre music mega sites, perhaps it's time to visit a place that is devoted to one area that you are particularly interested in. They may have less money to spend overall, but their enthusiasm and niche knowledge may just compensate. Jazz afficionados will enjoy the huge range of resources here. Plenty of music to download, articles, letters, opinions, interviews, festivals and heaps of local contributions via journalists with their finger on the pulse - a pulse that beats at 15/8, going to 7/4 for the trumpet solo. There is a classified ad section and a selection of links to other great Jazz sites, clubs, radio stations and record labels. Jazz isn't all dry and intellectual musical snobbery - they even include some funny animated cartoons. If you like jazz, you'll dig this cool site, man. - SS
Rating: ****

Name of Site: Live365.com
URL: www.live365.com
Plug-Ins: Yes
Navigability: Easy
Graphics: Medium, Good Quality
Internal Links: 25,388
Review: Radio is something you either listen to or broadcast, and here you can do both to your heart's desire. Now everyone is a fast talking DJ spinning the sounds to the world. Sure some of these people may have noone listening to them, but the collective effect of one site promoting pirate Internet radio to this extent is a quantum shift towards anarchy. The technical achievement of putting all this together is very impressive, as each station has a rating, number of listeners, connection speed, broadcaster profile, and much more. Many recording artists have established their official radio stations here, and they make it easy for anyone to do the same. Some chat and message boards keep the live action happening, as the gigabytes of sound just keep on streaming. As their slogan says, this is a "radio revolution". - SS
Rating: *****

Name of Site: Sonic Net
URL: www.sonicnet.com
Plug-Ins: yes
Navigability: Easy
Graphics: Medium, High Quality
Internal Links: 100s
Review: Another mega-music site, SonicNet combines the corporate and the grass-roots approach to on-line music in a convenient marriage of philosophies. You can check out Marilyn Manson or Bon Jovi, or shift to more esoteric styles, even set yourself up as the next big thing. Created by an alliance of numerous high-flyers of the music and Internet world, this site provides the resources and the breadth and depth to offer all things to all people and maybe even have the chance of a long-term future. The channels and categories are arranged well to make finding your thing easier, there are dozens of radio stations, and you can personalise the site with your favourite artists. No doubt you'll be getting a few emails offering you fantastic opportunities to buy their latest album, but you told them what you like, didn't you? - SS
Rating: ****

Name of Site: Chaos Music
URL: www.chaosmusic.com
Plug-Ins: Yes
Navigability: Medium
Graphics: Medium, Good Quality
Internal Links: 50+
Review: Chaos has grown and evolved quite nicely over recent times to assimilate more and more avenues of culture, marketing, mediums, affiliate programs and overall enhancements to their site. There are so many areas to choose from on the front page, it is a bit hard to decide where to start, but that is a good thing, as they are clearly listed and described and each link leads you to a world within a world. There is order within the chaos. With over half a million music titles available, not counting DVD, games, merchandise etc., it is quite an achievement to manage this beast. Unknown artists can sell their CD's alongside the majors, and there are countless downloads, stations, reviews, specials, humour, it is well worth considering becoming a member and making Chaos a regular pit-stop. Chaos need your order to stay alive, so get out your credit card and start clicking. - SS
Rating: *****

(Reviewers Choice)
Name of Site: Shockwave.com
URL: www.shockwave.com
Plug-Ins: yes
Navigability: Easy
Graphics: Heavy, Good Quality
Internal Links: 20
Review: From the creators of the software that makes so much cool stuff come alive on the net, comes a place where you can sample the latest, greatest cutting-edge and new Flash releases. Major artists the world over (and a few minor ones) are having "Shockwave Singles" made of their songs, which can now include all kinds of interactivity while the song plays. I tried Maddona's "Music", among others, and went about collecting snippets of music throughout the clip to add in myself as a remix. Shockwave is a multimedia medium, so pretty much anything is possible, bandwidth permitting, and the creative minds have set about proving it. Click the Music link from the main page, then try the music mixers, photo jam, videos and singles as well as getitng the latest previews of new releases, downloading 100,000 MP3's and if that ain't enough, go back to the main shockwave page and continue to blow your mind and your remaining hard drive space with what's on offer. It's Shocking! - SS
Rating: *****

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