Earlham Libraries Home: ES1: The Care and Feeding of Your iPod: Music, Identity, and Society: Reference, Scores, & Web Sites

Library Purchased Reference Sources

Oxford Music Online This link opens in a new window
Contains the full text of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nd edition, 2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, (2nd edition, 2002).

Oxford Reference - Performing Arts
Oxford Reference – Performing Arts
Contains the complete texts of Oxford University Press performing art dictionaries and encyclopedias, including companions for music, theater, opera, and dance.

ABC-CLIO eBooks Reference Collection This link opens in a new window
Over 50 music encyclopedias including many on specific genres, such as country, folk, funk, hip-hop, punk, heavy metal, bluegrass, jazz, and musical theater. Click on "Popular Culture" and then "Music & Performing Arts" to browse.
Biography Reference Bank This link opens in a new window
Offers the in-depth, original profiles from the Current Biography and World Authors series, the thorough periodical coverage of Biography Index and the specialist biographical content of Junior Authors & Illustrators. It provides biographical full-text articles, page images and abstracts from today’s leading magazines and journals.
Biography Reference Center This link opens in a new window
This database offers a collection of full-text biographies and unique narrative biographies. Including coverage for several of the most popular and heavily-researched biographies and genres, including those contained within Biography Today and Biography (both dating back to the first issue published).
Pop Culture Universe This link opens in a new window
Overview essays on American popular culture by decade from 1900s through 2000s. For each decade includes sections on Architecture and Housing; Books and Literature; Business, Advertising, and Consumer Culture; Clothing, Fashion, and Appearance; Film; Food and Drink; Music; Performing Arts and Theater; Recreation and Leisure; Sports; Technology and Media; Television and Radio; Transportation and Travel; and Visual Arts.
Includes media.

Mainstream Music News

AllMusic
Biographies, discographies, reviews, and essays on [mostly] popular music.
WWW Sites of Interest to Musicologists
From the American Musicological Society.
Billboard.com
Charts of top song, available by genre. Historical archive of charts also available.
Yahoo: Entertainment: Music: Artists
A web guide to music artists sites: includes sites arranged by genre as well as artists.
Wikipedia

Finding new music - Blogs, etc.

Hype Machine -
Music blog aggregator. Pulls hit songs off music blogs across the web and allows users to vote on them.
Daytrotter
Self described as "The source for new music from emerging bands”, Daytrotter records live sessions with musicians and makes them available to download.
Gilles Peterson - Worldwide Music
BBC Radio 6 Music - Gilles Peterson
"The formula for Gilles' radio shows is a simple one: the finest new music he can lay his hands on? and that's it. From Sun-Ra to Roy Hargrove to Theo Parrish to Flying Lotus - if it swings in the right places, it's in. His shows are a marker for everything that is great about underground music from Brooklyn to Benin and beyond."
NPR Music
Brings together content from multiple NPR programs, such as "All Songs Considered" and "World Cafe", and live concert series such as "Tiny Desk Concerts" and "Studio Sessions".