things a music fansite should have?

[croatiankid]

I'm thinking of making a fansite about an artist I really like. It really wouldn't be affiliated with him, except maybe eventually if he could help update concert information.

My first question is something of privacy: would it be ethical/acceptable for me to register a domain that is hisname.com? He's a Japanese artist, and his official site is kind of sad (it has finally been updated in December of 2006 after god knows how many years of rotting), although he is supposedly quite famous in Japan. On the site I'd definitely provide resources on where to buy his CDs, since I myself have had a hell of a time trying to find a place to buy them, especially since one of my favorites is out of print.

When I think fansites, I really envy simtropolis (http://simtropolis.com)- a site I used to visit oh so very often. Just look at that user interactivity.

I'm not sure how big (or small) the group of fans to the particular artist is, so I'm afraid fan input, especially in the beginning, would be very limited, if not none existent. So how about starting with a News section, which would be the index of the site, and it would have news about the site and his performances. Then I could easily add a photo gallery. And a section that would be a calendar of his performances- i.e. a schedule, which would (for the time being) have to be taken from his site. Then I'd have discography, with links to places they can be purchased.
With what I said regarding his fan base, and the popularity of the site (zero at the beginning, aren't all sites?), I think a forum would be a useless void in the site. But I always want to leave the possibility to add new things, with user interactivity. Polls! Yes, every fansite needs them, so I have to keep this in my mind.

Now, what to make my site with: I'm thinking CMS. Which one, I have no idea. I need a CMS with the possibility of easily adding on new, interactive sections. Also, I need to be able to implement my own design- a generic one just won't cut it here.

People I know this is a long post, but if you could even answer one of the questions or give a suggestion, I'd greatly appreciate it!

[vinyl-junkie]

Your ideas for site content seem to be pretty well covered. I'd steer clear of copying pictures from his, or anyone else's, website unless you have permission from them to do so. They could very well take a dim view of that and have your site shut down for copyright infringement. You don't want to risk that.

Since he is Japanese, you might want to consider offering versions of your site in Japanese as well as English. That might attract a larger audience. Don't ask me how to do that though, because I haven't a clue. You might see if another fan might want to help out with that.

Don't be afraid of not having much there in the beginning. Offering a discography, information on where to buy his CDs, and an upcoming concert schedule are plenty for a starter.

[croatiankid]

Also another thing I came up before I fell asleep :) is that I should make a BIO page, that would go chronological, and would include album releases, which would be links to the coresponding album in the discography section/page. And a small table of contents with ID links, wikipedia style.
So yeah, I need a CMS that has a plugin for multiple/dual languages. I mean, eventually I could just install the CMS in 2 subfolders (one is en other is jp or something like that), but I've seen sites (idunno where) that change the language of the content through a variable in the URL (like lang=us...). So I need to think of a cool design and a CMS. Oh yeah I guess unicode is a must

[croatiankid]

I think I'll use Joomla!. I've never used it before, so I hope I'm up to the task of integrating a design. It has a hell of a lot of extensions, including polls and language managers.
For his bio page I'll use the picture that's in the wikipedia article (if it's in there it has to be public domain), but I need to find more. I should really get in contact with him directly or through his record company to ask for pictures I could use once I get the site moving.
If I ever make a digital image of a design (ala photoshop), then this will be it.