trht.net - The Ultimate Music Database

The Rock Hard Times is an impressive music database which facilitates searching by artist, genre, country, or label. The site is like a mashup between IMDB and Wikipedia, allowing anyone to edit any of the content on any of the pages.

There is a significant amount of information on this site, and if you search for an artist who isn’t yet there, you can create a page for them yourself. A test search for U2 brought back an impressive catalogue of the majority of their works, complete with general information about the band and a list of their albums complete with options to watch, listen or buy. Another interesting option is that you can also switch from album view to a view that allows you to see b-sides, re-mixes and compilations that the band has been a part of.

“My reason for doing this website is that I felt there wasn't a site like it available - that there was a need for it. Something that would pull everything on a particular artist together into a neat, simple package. Something that would be editable by the people but in a more structured than how Wikipedia does it. And, yes, discogs.com and musicbrainz.org do this in their own way and I totally respect their work. However, discogs.com is more focused on discography, musicbrainz.org is more focused on being able to put proper mp3 tags on tracks, and I am more interested in making a sort of meta-fansite.”

Look for this site to become the IMDB of the music world. The ability for anyone to add and edit is going to make this a constantly improving and growing database of searchable music information.

The font used on the page is tiny and somewhat difficult to read at times. The really should consider increasing the font size. Also, why not incorporate a “top ten” feel and put up a list of most searched artists on the page?

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