Sound Recordings

Archives and Research

  • All Music Guide Open to everyone
    The world's largest and most comprehensive entertainment information database for music, videos, DVD's and video games, All Media Guide offers expert reviews, biographies, ratings, images,titles, credits, and thousands of descriptive categories. Since1991, All Media Guide has collected, processed and linked informationfor both in-print titles and historical out-of-print titles. Allcontent is original, written expressly for All Media Guide by aworldwide network of over 900 professional staff and freelance writersspecializing in music, movies and games.
  • Belfer Audio Laboratory & Archive (Syracuse University) Open to everyone
    The Library's audio archive was founded in 1963,when it acquired the Joseph and Max Bell Collection of 150,000 sound recordings. The Archive is the third largest in the United States. Collections now number more than 300,000 recordings in all formats, including cylinders, discs, and magnetic tapes. Particular strengths lie in the Archive's holdings of late 19th- and early 20th-century commercially-released cylinders and phonodiscs of classical andpopular performances. While the majority of its holdings comprise music recordings, the Archive also contains early radio broadcasts, as well as thousands of spoken word recordings covering a wide range of personalities.
  • The Centre for the History and Analysis of Recorded Music
    (University of Southampton) Open to everyone
    Resources for research into historical recordings at Southampton include over 100 discographies, ranging from classical to popular music. They also include an extensive range of record journals, reviews and catalogues, covering a wide period and large selection of countries and record labels, with much of historical interest.
  • Cuca Records Database Open to everyone
  • Gramophone: Classical Music Website Open to everyone
    Includes Gramofile database of over 250,000 classical music reviews from the magazine (free registration required). Users can search (choose reviews, search Gramofile) by composer, orchestra, title, conductor, record label, catalogue number, reviewer, or keyword and view results sorted by date.
  • The Mainspring Open to everyone
    The Mainspring is a free online journal aimed at collectors of vintage records. It presents articles, label gallery, discographies, and links for collectors.
  • Marr Sound Archives (University of Missouri-Kansas City) Open to everyone
    The Marr Sound Archives, a unit of the University of Missouri-Kansas City Special Collections Department, holds nearly 250,000 sound recordings in formats thatinclude LPs, 78s, 45s, cylinders, transcription discs, instantaneous cut discs and open-reel tapes. The focus of the collection is the American experience as reflected in recorded sound, with very substantial and significant holdings in the following areas: American popular music; Jazz, Blues, and Country; Historic voices; Vintage radio programs; Authors reading their own works; Historic classical and operatic recordings. The popular collection dates from the beginning of recorded sound in the 1890s up to 1980. This aspect of the collection is rich in topical references reflecting events of the day.
  • Paramount Records Discography
  • Recorded Sound Reference Center Open to everyone
    The Recorded Sound Reference Center from the Library of Congress provides access to its commercial and archival audio holdings.
  • Recording Technology History Open to everyone
    Presents an illustrated and hyperlinked history of recording from 1877 to date.
  • Smithsonian Folkways Recordings: Folkways Database Search Open to everyone
    In the Folkways Database, you can search the Original Folkways Collection, Smithsonian Folkways, Paredon, Cook, Monitor, Fast Folk, and Dyer-Bennet labels. The Original Folkways Collection, titles issued by Moses Asch from 1948 to 1986, has over 35,000 trackson more than two thousand recordings in the database.You can dynamically search the database for album or song title, year recorded, label, or by Any Text that includes instrument, genre, and ethnic, national, and geographic attributes or any text. The database does not include lyrics.
  • Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound Open to everyone
    Established in 1958, the Stanford Archive of Recorded Sound [ARS] was one of the first major collections devoted to the acquisition, preservation, and dissemination of historically and artistically significant sound recordings at an educational institution. Researchers may draw upon a variety of sources in the Archive, some dating back to the earliest years of sound recording in the latenineteenth century. There are composers (Debussy or Ellington, for example) interpreting their own music and poets (Stein, Eliot, or Burroughs) reading their own works. The Archive houses more than 200,000 recordings and over 4,000 print and manuscript items.
  • UC-Santa Barbara Performing Arts Collection Open to everyone
    The Performing Arts Collection includes recordings, manuscripts, photographs, and artwork that documents and supports research on local, national, and international performing arts. The collections are located in the Special Collections Department on the third floor of Davidson Library.The sound archives consists of several large collections containing approximately 250,000 sound recordings including cylinders, 78s and LPs. The Special Collections department has listening and viewing facilities as well as a state of the art laboratory for playback and preservation copying of audio, video and film. A full time archivist oversees management of the collections.

In Print

  • allrecordlabels.com Open to everyone
    Provides a comprehensive listing of over 9500 record labels indexed by genre, format, and location.
  • Amazon.com Open to everyone
    Recordings are available in most genres.
  • ArkivMusic Open to everyone
    A classical music retailer with listings arranged by composer, conductor, performer, ensemble, or label.
  • Berkshire Record Outlet Inc. Open to everyone
    Discount classical music retailer.
  • Public Radio Music Source Open to everyone
    If you've heard it on public radio, you can buy it here. Public Radio Music Source is a nonprofit organization that provides valuable services for public radio listeners and stations alike. The Public Radio Music Source generates revenue for the public radio system by paying a royalty to participating public radio affiliates. Includes links to station playlists.
  • Tower Records Open to everyone
    Recordings are available in most genres.