Research Guides: Music Research Guide: Commercial Music (MUH 3210/4110)

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This page lists resources that will help you with your research in commercial music history. Since we cover finding and evaluating commercial sources in class, there are tutorials in the left-hand column that you can use as a refresher. If you need more information about a source, hover over the 'i' icon, and if you need help contact the Music Librarian!

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Reference Articles

Grove / Oxford Music Online Oxford Music Online is the gateway offering users the ability to access and cross-search multiple music reference resources in one location. With Grove Music Online as its cornerstone, Oxford Music Online also contains The Oxford Companion to Music (2002), The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd edition (revised 2006), and Colin Larkin's landmark Encyclopedia of Popular Music, 4th edition (2006).
Encyclopedia of Popular Music Featuring a broad musical scope covering popular music of all genres and periods from 1900 to the present day, including jazz, country, folk, rap, reggae, techno, musicals, and world music, the Encyclopedia also offers thousands of additional entries covering popular music genres, trends, styles, record labels, venues, and music festivals. Key dates, biographies, and further reading are provided for artists covered.

Scholarly Articles

Music Periodicals Database (IIMP) Music Periodicals Database (IIMP) provides indexing, abstracting and selected full-text coverage of the most important scholarly and popular music journals published today.
RILM Abstracts of Music Literature RILM is a comprehensive music bibliography featuring citations, abstracts, and indexes. Publications originate from 151 countries and are in 214 languages. There are currently over 550,000 records in RILM on traditional music, popular music, and classical music. Coverage of all document types begins in 1967. Coverage of Conference Proceedings goes back to 1835.

Newspaper/Magazine Articles

New York Times (nytimes.com) To access the library's NYTimes.com subscription, you'll need to sign up for an account using the link above. Choose Create an Account once you've clicked on the link above. We recommend that you use your Belmont email address just in case you ever have trouble with your password. Once you've created your account, you can access NYTimes.com from anywhere, including via the NYTimes mobile apps! Every year, you'll need to log in to your account via the link above while on campus to keep it active.
Historic New York Times (1851-2019) The New York Times (1851-2019) offers full page and article images with searchable full text back to the first issue. The collection includes digital reproductions providing access to every page from every available issue.
Entertainment Industry Music Archive This digital archive provides major trade and consumer magazines, from their inception to recent times, it arms students and researchers with the primary source material needed to develop a contextual understanding of the entertainment industry as it evolved over the 20th and 21st centuries. Access is available for Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive 4: Music – Folk, Rock & Hip Hop.
Rock's Backpages The ultimate archive of music journalism...OVER 25,000 CLASSIC ARTICLES on artists from Aaliyah to ZZ Top, on all genres from rockabilly to hip hop, by the finest music writers of the last 50 years.

Song Data

Hit Songs Deconstructed Updated weekly as songs enter the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10, this robust, fully interactive database houses proprietary data for the compositional characteristics of those songs, as well as related industry data for songwriters, artists, producers and record labels. Searches include the ability to search for compositional and industry trends, find songs with very specific compositional characteristics, and compare compositional characteristics across songs, songwriters, artists, producers, and record labels. Every song in the database includes a dedicated page detailing its key compositional characteristics related to genres and influences, lead vocal, lyrics and song structure, as well as other useful information such chart position, links to lyrics, the official video and more.

Find Audio/Video Recordings

Streaming Audio

American Song American Song is a history database that allows people to hear and feel the music from America's past.The database includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Included in the database are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more. If you have trouble accessing this resource, please use your browser's "private window" function
Popular Music Library contains a wide range of popular music from around the world, including hundreds of thousands of tracks from major genres in pop music, including alternative, country, Christian, electronic, hip-hop, metal, punk, new age, R&B, reggae, rock, soundtracks and many more. If you have trouble accessing this resource, please use your browser's "private window" function
DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) DRAM is a not-for-profit resource providing educational communities with on-demand streaming access to CD-quality audio, complete original liner notes and essays from independent record labels and sound archives. DRAM's ever growing collection contains more than 4,000 albums' worth of recordings from a distinctive set of 42 independent labels. The basis for the current collection is the diverse catalogue of American music recordings by New World Records and CRI labels, which merged in 2007.
Naxos Music Library (Jazz) Notable historic recordings (23,000 tracks) include the likes of Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans, John Coltrane, and the Modern Jazz Quartet to name a few. Soul artists like The Blackbyrds, the Staple Singers, Issac Hayes, and Albert King are also featured. On the rock n' roll side of things it features artists like Little Richard, Sam Cooke, the Soul Stirrers Lloyd Price and Creedance Clearwater Revival. Use of this resource is limited to three (3) simultaneous users. If you are unable to access it, please try again later.
Jazz Music Library Jazz Music Library provides coverage in breadth and depth for jazz music, and is essential for music history, jazz appreciation, jazz history, music performance, and African American studies: Definitive audio database of jazz from the early 20s to today, including all major jazz genres including vocal jazz, bebop, acid jazz, big band music, modern jazz, and more. More than 14,000 distinct song titles along with links to all the various versions recorded in Jazz Music Library. Hundreds of distinct instrument categories. More than 200 distinct jazz genres and sub-genres. Data on tens of thousands of artists and ensembles. If you have trouble accessing this resource, please use your browser's "private window" function

National Jukebox: Historical Recordings from the Library of Congress The recordings digitized from this project are from labels owned by Sony Entertainment, and at present, it consists of about 10,000 Victor label recordings produced between 1901 and 1925, including repertoire from popular, folk, and operatic idioms.

Streaming Video

Naxos Video Library The Naxos Video Library is a performing arts video library with over 300 operas, ballets, documentaries, live concerts, and musical tours of historic places. It includes the Naxos DVD label, Opus Arte, Arthaus, Dacapo, EuroArts, among others and is continuously updated to offer the best selection of performing arts videos. Use of this resource is limited to five (5) simultaneous users. If you are unable to access it, please try again later.
Swank Streaming Video Streaming access to more than 30 films, representing some of the top choices for Film Studies, including academy award winners and popular general release classics.
Kanopy Works best on Firefox or Chrome. Internet Explorer is no longer supported. provides access to one of the most unique collections of films in the world including award-winning documentaries, training films and theatrical releases on every topic imaginable. More than 15,000 titles are available from off and on-campus via this streaming service.

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