By Matthew Palmer
"Wall of Sound" is an appropriately edgy name for an edgy
music news site. It is more news-oriented than a typical entertainment
music site, because it offers the latest news, reviews, and Billboard
charts. Wall of Sound is more entertaining than a straight news site,
as it features photo galleries and artist interviews. Both of these
sides make Wall of Sound a good one-stop site for music lovers.
By creating a free account with Wall of Sound, you can create a list
of favorite artists. This eliminates the need to search for them every
time you want their latest news or tour dates. As for tour dates,
Wall of Sound has employed a similar technique so you can, with just
a few clicks, compile a list of appearances that you're interested
in. They appear as a list in what Wall of Sound calls "SnipIts."
Again, this is a convenient and smart feature. These two lists as
well as the continually updated news and features makes this site
one that is worth reading frequently. For what Wall of Sound does,
it does well. However, it lacks certain other features that would
allow Wall of Sound to transcend what it is now. As a music site,
I expected music clips. There are some on their special Grammy 2001
coverage site, though I couldn't find other clips. On the individual
artists' sites, there are links to UBL.com, which features song snippets.
For any sort of material like this, I realize that there are copyrights,
artists, record companies, and lawyers to deal with, which can make
it very difficult. However, hearing the artist in an interview would
be very interesting, and, if for people with faster Internet connections,
more interesting than a written transcript.
This criticism is part of a larger issue that all web sites should
ask themselves: does the nature and power of the Internet require
its content to do more? Because the technology can, I often feel that
it should. One (and probably the most important) burden that Wall
of Sound fulfills is timeliness. Rolling Stone and other magazines
comes out monthly, while Wall of Sound can be updated daily or even
more frequently. Going into this critique, I hoped Wall of Sound would
provide more of the music experience. Clearly, playing music online
could be a big part of this. Or, interactive timelines using Macromedia
Flash. The photo galleries and montages Wall of Sound has are nice
additions, but there should be more. I feel people who expect their
web sites to be flashy and slick just for the sake of providing eye
candy are missing the point of the Internet. Instead, Wall of Sound
has the opportunity to add to their excellent news coverage with more
immersive content.