Information Society: In Praise of Passions Just Like Mine and Other Uber-Fan Sites

Today bought a major dark cloud over the days of Morrissey and The Smiths fans everywhere, even more so than the reissue of Viva Hate. Passions Just Like Mine, the long-running discography/videography/gigography for Manchester’s favorite singer/songwriter, has closed up shop.

In a statement, the site’s founder, Stephane, announced a desire to pursue “a few other personal projects in mind (unrelated to Morrissey)” but was still taking suggestions as to “what to do with the body.” (The body of the site is currently gone,  as Stephane “could not deal with the site just stagnating there, slowly becoming incomplete.“)

As a fan, I’m going to miss PJLM’s exhaustive comprehension to its subject – as you can guess, such a quality is endearing around these parts – not necessarily out of my love for Moz or The Smiths (although I cherish both) but particularly because I love websites that keep such musical flames alive. Were it not for the devotion of fans and the usability of HTML, I’d never known there were at least two versions of Duran Duran’s Rio I’d want to acquire. My Tears for Fears Reissue Theory post wouldn’t have been the same. Sure, sometimes you get lucky on Wikipedia, but it’s hard to beat a well-crafted, singularly obsessive music site.

So in tribute to Stephane and his work, we ask you, our readers: what are your favorite sites obsessively devoted to music? It can be one artist, a few, a whole label, whichever. We want you to pay tribute to them, because we’re lucky to have them all in our lives.

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Mike Duquette
Mike Duquette

Mike Duquette (Founder) was fascinated with catalog music ever since he was a teenager. A 2009 graduate of Seton Hall University with a B.A. in journalism, Mike paired his profession with his passion through The Second Disc, one of the first sites to focus on all reissue labels great and small. His passion for reissues turned into a career, having written at and worked for all three major catalogue music labels and contributing to Allmusic, Billboard, Discogs, City Pages and Ultimate Classic Rock. He's penned liner notes for Verve, Chess, Mondo and Soul Music Records.

Born and raised in New Jersey, Mike lives in Astoria, Queens with his wife, a cat named Ravioli, twin daughters and a large yet tasteful collection of music.

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12 thoughts on “Information Society: In Praise of Passions Just Like Mine and Other Uber-Fan Sites”

  1. A great site for Monkees fans is the Monkees Mixography, detailing which versions of songs are available on which albums. Once I found it my Monkees collection expanded from just the “Listen to the Band” box set to over 40 CDs and a handful of LPs. Not bad for a band that originally released 9 studio albums!
    http://www.semidetached.net/mixography/index.htm

  2. depmod.com – the Depeche discog website. it’s so thorough the are releases noted on the site that even I haven’t seen 😉 Definitely worth checking out.

    …I can’t believe “Passions” is gone. R.I.P. That site was a great resource. I had noticed it was a behind on current info. None the less, It will be missed!

    1. It now looks as if “Passions” has been reprieved and will be coming back any day now in a new and improved format

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