Rock's Backpages is an online archive of music journalism, sourced from freelance contributions to the music and mainstream press from the 1950s to the present day. The articles are full text and searchable, and all are reproduced with the permission of the copyright holders. The database was founded in 2000 by British music journalist Barney Hoskyns. As of September 2023 it contained over 50,000 articles, including interviews, features and reviews, which covers all genres of popular music from blues and soul to EDM, up to the present day. Rock's Backpages adds over 50 new text articles and one audio interview to the collection per week.
The articles are sourced from magazines such as Creem, Rolling Stone, New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Crawdaddy! and Mojo. The database contains contributions from over 800 journalists, primarily from the US and UK, including journalists such as Dave Marsh, Nick Kent, Charles Shaar Murray, Nick Tosches, Mick Farren, Vivien Goldman, Al Aronowitz and Ian MacDonald.
Annual subscription and perpetual access/one-time purchase are available.
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