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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http://www.searchingforagem.com/ <--"Searching For A Gem", the most comprehensive sire for Bob Dylan collectors known to mankind.
Mine would have to be http://www.princevault.com - an exhaustive look into Prince's discography and Third Man Records website. So many goodies on there and The Vault packages are great for fans of vinyl & Jack White related material.
World of Genesis: http://www.worldofgenesis.com/
Thrashers Wheat does a great job for Neil Young Fans
Well for a two hit wonder band (they did release 3 albums though!) my favourite is the one devoted to New Musik http://www.new-musik.co.uk/ It's very indepth!
Love "This World of Water"! I hear a lot of New Musik in such current bands/acts as Owl City.
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
Elvis Costello is well served by inanotherroom.com. Great for all of the reissue differences.
This Pet Shop Boys site is the ultimate destination devoted entirely to the music of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe. Very obsessive and so thorough and informative - even the pair have endorsed it! http://www.geowayne.com/psbhtml.htm
Along with the Pet Shop Boys site noted above, there is a very compreshensive discography at http://www.psb-discography.com/ .
My personal favorite fansite is http://www.gbvdb.com , dedicated to the iconic US indie band Guided by Voices and all related projects of various members over the years.
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!
It now looks as if "Passions" has been reprieved and will be coming back any day now in a new and improved format