Song year - how to find it online?

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Ruby · #1 Post by **Ruby** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 12:36 pm

Hey everyone. This is my first post on this forum. I've been DJing for about a year or so... just around 20-25 sets. I DJ off of iTunes on my Mac and have decided to start being a little more attentive to the year that songs were recorded to give me a better sense of what era they come from.

That said, I've been on the search for a few reliable places to track down detailed track info. There is a cool iTunes script that lets you search for song info on gracenote, but sometimes my search won't turn up any info.
(can be found here... search for "CDDB" http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/)

So yes, then I verify that I have the correct song title and such - but does anyone regularly track down this info? I've got good google skillz, but sometimes I just end up with pages of random shite.

Got suggestions? Also- there's the issue of re-releases. For example, I downloaded Etta James - Trust in Me from iTunes and it lists the date as 1999, because it was rereleased on a 20th Century Masters Collection. But I want to know what year it was originally recorded.

I also have this problem because I burned a lot of my collection before I left San Francisco, but didn't spend a lot of time looking at the liner notes at the time. As my collection is still back in SF, I'm doing a little back-tracking trying to get some of this info.

Ideas? Suggestions? Tricks?

Thanks,
Ruby

Campus Five · #2 Post by **Campus Five** » Sat Jan 28, 2006 2:35 pm

You can use allmusic.com and with a little deduction, you can figure out the song year.

#3 Post by **JesseMiner** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:00 am

You are bringing up one of the many reasons I am reluctant to switch over from CDs to online purchases: the lack of recording information, whether it be date, location, personnel or interesting trivia. This is important knowledge to have, and a lot of it is still only found in printed material. I'd be curious to see if the labels ever decide to make liner notes available in pdf format, but the trends seem to be shifting away from albums and towards singles. And when was the last time you saw a single come with liner notes?

As for your Etta James question, I have the 20th Century Masters Collection, and it took about two seconds of browsing through the liner notes to tell you that "Trust In Me" was recorded in October 1960.

Best of luck with your search.

Jesse

Ruby · #4 Post by **Ruby** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:20 am

Thanks for your responses. It's good to know what tricks people use. Yes... there are definite drawbacks and advantages to both CD and mp3 djing... it's my own fault for not making notes from my Muddy Waters album, but at the least it has enabled me to travel the country with the majority of my collection this summer.

At the least, it's forcing me to pay attention to an aspect of my collection that I frankly hadn't given much thought before. I'm sure I'll learn a bit in my hunt for dates.

Cheers!
-Ruby