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Blog post by Graham Needham on 13th December 2013

It was 21 years ago when I first created CyberNoise - a printed magazine stuffed with information about electronic music artists and releases. There were other magazines and fanzines around but they mainly dealt with reviews and interviews. As a collector my dream was to have a reference guide to past releases including limited editions, promos and foreign releases. I wanted a list of forthcoming releases with release dates and formats. I wanted a directory of information about the other magazines that existed along with record shops and record labels plus companies offering services for electronic musicians. I knew lots of other people wanted this too.

By 1996 the internet had arrived into homes and I looked into ways of getting my content onto the internet. The internet offered so much opportunity to create my vision. But life and work got in the way. Even though I ended up pursuing a career in computers and networking and then forming my own company to help other companies get the most out of IT and the internet I never really had the time to pursue my dream.

In 2009 big, but ultimately good, changes occurred at my company and in 2010 I realised I had an opportunity to create my dream at the same time as being able to carry on with clients' work. With my company I set about putting my idea for the ultimate music information archive on the internet into motion.

Over the years I've used many types of computers, networks, servers, operating systems, software, programming languages and web sites. None of them did what I believed could be done. Some did small parts of it but usually, never very well. Most were utter rubbish or only catered for certain types of genre and/or listener.

There has always been this inane desire to pigeonhole everything and create genres so if you liked Throbbing Gristle you weren't supposed to like Jean-Michel Jarre. If you liked Erasure you weren't supposed to like Skinny Puppy. Magazines and fanzines followed this course creating niches and cliques and unfortunately this still happens today even with the internet. Ultimately the music, musicians and the fans lose out and everyone ends up missing out on some truly great music that they may actually like. I don't believe in the minutiae of genres but of course it can be useful to have single focus point e.g. electronic, rock, hip-hop, classical, soundtracks, etc. Ultimately though, there should also be a place where all music can be found and all the intricate relationships between everything can help people discover something truly wonderful.

It took me and my company three years to create the World Wide Release DataBase (WWRDB) network which is that single place to find everything. It's first incarnation is finally up and running and available to the world. There are parts of the network that have a single focus point and one of them is my beloved CyberNoise, still dedicated to all things electronic. Do come along and join in the fun even if it's just to browse rather than contribute.

The WWRDB network of web sites:



Blog post author = Graham Needham
Blog post created on = 13th December 2013
Blog post last revised = 12th May 2023 15:39
Link to this blog post = https://www.wwrdb.com/blog_post.php?22 (how to link to this web site - details)

This blog post is representative of the blog author's individual opinions and as such any opinions that may be expressed here may not necessarily reflect the views of everyone at World Wide Release DataBase or the holding company Burning Helix sro.

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