CDROM - RockBase Plus
A fully comprehensive popular music catalogue on one CD ROM is a great idea. No more searching through dusty back copies of Record Collector, no more doubts about whether you’re missing any of your idol’s obscure releases, instant searches for tracks, musicians and labels. Unfortunately, this CD isn’t it.
The alledged 337,000 entries are well hidden by a terrible front-end. The search engine is woefully slow and pointlessly picky (Beatles, not The Beatles). Even on my reasonably fast computer sporting an eight speed CD ROM drive, a search for tracks containing "Stairway to" took about ten minutes. There’s no stop button, and the software somehow manages to freeze Windows while it seeks. It’s also inflexible - for example, you can search for a musician’s name to find the bands they joined, but you can’t find out the lineup of a particular group.
The content is patchy after about 1993, even though it’s supposed to cover up to 1996. The Database had no entries for ‘musician Liam Howlett’, had never heard of artists Bis, KLF or Ash, and had only one album entry for Radiohead (Pablo Honey) and no singles. There is no guide to the value or cost of releases, and special releases such as limited editions and bonus discs are missing.
Occasionally, a search will strike a chord, and wads of obscure releases and muso information appears. These moments are sadly rare and the work of author Terry Hounsome (of Rock Record and Single File) is inaccessible and underused. A good programmer could easily make a success of this package. Until then, hold on to your old Record Collectors, pop pickers.
Jeremy Thomson
