Research Guides: Music: Concert Reviews

Tips for Searching Success

What to Ask

Who/what/where/when: performers, program, concert date and location, record label, etc. You may not need to know it all, but using this information as keywords makes your searching more efficient.
Target your search. Where might a performance or recording be reviewed: local or national papers? trade journals? popular or indie music magazines?

How to Look

Check the dates of coverage. Don't waste time searching in a database with reviews that are too old or too recent.
Limit before you search. If you can't restrict your search to reviews, try using "review" as a keyword.
Search multiple databases. There will probably be overlap, but each one contains a slightly different set of journals and newspapers.

Troubleshoot your Results

Found a promising citation, but didn't get the full text? Use the "NYU" link to check NYU's collections for a copy: it may be in print.
Install the NYU Library EZProxy Bookmarklet to bypass pay walls and reload pages using NYU's subscriptions.

Review Sources

Music and Performing Arts Databases
General Interest Newspapers and Magazines

Music & Performing Arts This link opens in a new window
Indexes scholarly and popular journals. Use Advanced Search to limit by Document Type ("Performance Review," "Music Review," "Recording Review").
Music Index This link opens in a new window
Covers articles published from 1970-present. Try limiting by Document Type ("Article," "Entertainment Review," "Opinion").
Music Periodicals Database This link opens in a new window
Music Periodicals Database (formerly International Index to Music Periodicals) is a research database for periodical articles in music from 1874 to the present, with indexing for more than 600 journals and full text for more than 220.
Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
The Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive offers digitized primary sources for studying the history of the film, music, theater, and broadcast industries from 1880 to the near present. Magazines include American Cinematographer, Back Stage, Billboard, Broadcasting, Hollywood Reporter, Mix, Musical Express, Radio and Records, Reggae & African Beat, Spin, Stage, Variety, and Writers Guild of America.
Rock's Backpages Library This link opens in a new window
Rock's Backpages Library is a digital archive of articles, reviews, interviews and more for the study of rock, pop, r&b, hip hop, and other popular music genres since the 1950s.
International Bibliography of Theater & Dance with Full Text This link opens in a new window
The International Index to Performing Arts Indexes journal articles, books, book chapters, dissertations, and monographs in theatre and the performing arts and covers 1984 to present.
RIPM This link opens in a new window
RIPM (Répertoire internationale de la presse musicale, or Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals) is a digital repository of historic music periodicals originally published 1768 to 1966, the majority of them reproduced in complete runs with searchable full text.

NYU Library Catalog
Many newspaper articles can be found in NYU's Library Catalog.

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
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Nexis Uni (Formerly LexisNexis Academic Universe) provides access to full-text newspapers (U.S. and some international), news wires, transcripts, and trade journals.
Please clear your browser's cache and cookies before attempting to access this resource.
Periodicals Index Online This link opens in a new window
Indexes millions of articles published in over 4,250 periodicals in the humanities and social sciences across more than 300 years.
Readers' Guide Retrospective (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Provides indexing of the most popular general-interest periodicals published in the United States and reflects the history of 20th century America.
Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
Academic Search Complete is a multi-disciplinary full-text database with full text coverage of information in many areas of academic study. Users can access articles, book chapters, images, videos, reviews, both from peer-reviewed and popular resources.

International Newspapers and News Sources
by Jill Conte Last Updated Nov 4, 2024 8813 views this year

U.S. News Stories and Newspapers
by Jill Conte Last Updated Nov 13, 2024 7102 views this year