www.rateyourmusic.com C/D?

Oh yeah, Slift is indeed the shiznit, I missed it somehow.

It's funny, because I do have the opposite stance; I go to RYM because I am an old lady and because I do want to engage with the hivemind, to find out what "the kids" are listening to. Which isn't something I feel like I could necessarily get from Pitchfork? And certainly isn't something I'm ever going to get from fucking Fantano. RYM has certain... flaws in its userbase (psychedelic nazis: #19), but it did also expose me to certain points of view that weren't common among people my age. I honestly do believe there are more trans women on that site than there are cis women, and that's not a situation that I think is ideal, but I'll take it over a site populated entirely by cis dudes.

Most of the stuff that makes my eyes glaze over on the list is music by people I've already heard and dismissed, the elder statesmen of rock music. Maybe the new Strokes album is great - people change over time, it's probably not fair to them that I hear their name and roll my eyes at the insufferable hype train for "Is This It?" and its cod-Mapplethorpe album cover - seriously, how could I ever be expected to have the slightest amount of respect for a heterosexual spin on Mapplethorpe? - and maybe I will eventually check the album out and love it. I will probably not check out either of the Nine Inch Nails "dark ambient" records or the DOOM Eternal video game soundtrack.

Some of the metal I do occasionally check out. Some of it I genuinely do like. There's just this whole crew of people who listen to metal and only metal and the records are everywhere in the ratings, and honestly, the TRVE CVLT METAL people are the opposite of what I'm looking for in music. I'm not looking for darkness or evil or _purity_ any more than I'm necessarily looking for "wacky" joke metal where they play klezmer and sing about hot dogs. I'm not opposed to either of those things. I am uncommonly fond of the Chunktrade demo, which is pure joke metal with song titles like "Zoophilic Prosthetic Rectum Masturbation" and a cover of the "Popeye" theme.

What I like in music is not so easily categorized in terms of genre or style, not so easily put into words. That's why I like the lists, which are sort of a manual way of Glenn's "deep learning" made-up genres, because it's a way of grouping music that doesn't require rational or analytic explanation. I can learn more about a song by listening to the first three seconds of it, in most cases, than I can by reading long paragraphs about it.

The criticism I most like is someone whose taste I trust to be interesting saying "Hey, listen to this!" - and nothing more. The RYM charts are hundreds or thousands of people echo-chambering, but a lot of a time the thing they're sitting in a room and amplifying is worth hearing. I can see why some people roll their eyes at the R.A.P. Ferriera record, but it's the sort of thing I will probably always have a sentimental fondness for, for instance. And even when it's not, even when what those kids are hype about sounds like edgelord bullshit to me... well, it's a good antidote to FOMO if nothing else!

I'm used to snubbing ilxors! I know there are ilxors who make really acclaimed music, ilxors who I like a lot as people, and the music has just never grabbed me. I don't necessarily correlate how I feel about someone with how I feel about their work, though I do try to avoid listening to music made by living human beings if I have seen persuasive evidence that they are awful.

This Slift... and maybe I should take this to your thread LJ, lol, but it leaves me cold. I actually managed to listen to a whole song, and it's not bad, I've just heard what seems like thousands of other records that are indistinguishable from this. Specifically, I'd much rather listen to some old Litmus records.

Au contraire, I think RYM, when used well, offers an escape from certain hiveminds (as well as an overview of the ones that do exist). Witness, as I said elsewhere yesterday, the Pitchfork-industrial complex:

U guys can survey the reviews here - https://www.metacritic.com/music/fetch-the-bolt-cutters/fiona-apple/critic-reviews

― I eat fast foods (morrisp), Sunday, 19 April 2020 16:35 (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

That's why I use RYM. Everything (more or less) is covered, and every opinion is catered for. Not that many people are making a good fist of critiquing the Fiona Apple. (You think my liveblog yesterday was bad? You should read the RYM comment-box and negative reviews, lol)

an escape from certain hiveminds

Emphasis on 'certain'. Still, it's better than (almost) nothing.

the mere presence of negative reviews is pretty fuckin value-neutral to me if those negative reviews refuse to engage with the material cf. those people calling the fiona record "the ultimate karen album"

also there are way more people in that comment box talking about anthony fucking fantano, speaking of catered-for opinions

"thank god there's some difference of opinion here, even if the writing is garbage and no one knows what they're talking about"

Specifically, I'd much rather listen to some old Litmus records.

Lol I played with this band, unless it's a different one (there seem to be several)

btw if you're constantly railing against certain hiveminds i'd argue you haven't escaped them at all

With all due respect, Brad, sometimes I get the feeling that ‘engaging with the material’ means hearing it the way you do. Which is fair in some sense – our value judgments about art are never entirely subjective... to ourselves.

i mean, specifically concerning lj's liveblog, it was like he was hearing it through the pitchfork score instead of listening to the record or having any real engagement with the artist or what she's been trying to do. fair to hear it and feel unaffected or even annoyed by it but it trips into reactionary when you make it all about this self-satisfied striking against the dominant narrative

also you'll all find this unsurprising but i agree that our value judgments about art are never entirely subjective!

the fiona record is an instance of an artist fully pushing her music into a universe only hinted at on her previous record(s), these are the usual conditions that foster critical acclaim for an already-critically-beloved artist, before pitchfork's branding even enters it

Lol I played with this band, unless it's a different one (there seem to be several)

― varèse désserts (Matt #2)

the one with the mellotron

i think professional criticism has strong positive value. when i was younger i had this sort of zappa-style sneering distrust of "professional critics" as being, you know, this elite cabal of gatekeepers whose tyrannical hegemony we needed to overthrow.

that point of view was, i believe, bullshit. the criticism zappa got was fair and just and zappa wasn't able to take it, and his fans weren't able to take it, but their inability to _learn_ from that criticism does not make the critics the bad guys here.

i would say this that is a sort of thing as "critical hegemony", not in an intentional or absolute sense, but music is a social art form, and so, necessarily, is music criticism. i would say that amateur criticism is of a certain limited value but mostly serves to reinforce alternative hegemonical structures, which insofar as it contains the possibility to promote fascism is not something i'm particularly keen on. my experience of amateur criticism has been of value to me because it has taught me how to write better criticism and, in addition, some small knowledge of how to differentiate good criticism from bad criticism, which is a skill most people don't have much of, to our collective detriment.

mostly i'm wary of this "democratic" notion that anybody is as good at anything as anybody else. even considering there is no true empirical basis for criticism, i do consider brad, for instance, to be a better critic, for their critical writing to be generally of more value, than most of the collected reviews of rym. in a better world the low quality of that writing would be recognized and would lead to a greater appreciation of writing of the sort brad does, but that seems not to be a widespread viewpoint.

Sometimes a dismissive knee-jerk trashing is a reaction to that dismal sense of alienation you can get when your nominal peers are (yet again) unanimously creaming over something you find simply godawful. Well, maybe not entirely "simply" but is it worth digging for the complication if you're not getting paid to dig? I do now and then happily break new aesthetic ground in what I can appreciate but also it's silly to pretend that you can't (at some point) quite reliably know when a thing isn't worth bothering with, or indeed that preferences won from experience aren't, you know, a valid guide to goodness and fulfilment.

is it worth digging for the complication if you're not getting paid to dig?

imo yes! i mean, i feel like it's one of the on-going projects of this board and why this place is more than just people shitposting opinions at each other (some of the time)

if you don't want to dig deeper, that's fine, but why post a knee-jerk trashing like that to the internet? like, where is the benefit in dave marshing all over a record in public?

it's true that the worst thing about rateyourmusic is rating your music

that dismal sense of alienation you can get

My reaction to “hype” is mainly — “I wish the music I love received even half this rapturous praise!” I do try to separate the hype from the material, when I’m listening to the album; but it’s hard to keep your reception entirely uncolored by it (a 10.0 on Pitchfork feels like almost a challenge to find weak points).

Well that is something I find depressing about dismissive one star one line RYM 'reviews' but "sheer upright bass pablum" is good value for money IMO.

xxp

(xp I guess some of the music I love does indeed actually receive half, or more, as much praise... so what am I complaining about, lol)

LOL. Quantitative evaluation has a use after all.

it made me search "upright bass pablum" on youtube because i wanted to hear what such a thing could possibly sound like

the results were disappointing, tedx talks by upright bass players - i mean, good job parsing that search google but i don't actually want to watch a fucking tedx talk - and somebody building an upright bass out of garbage, which i would want to watch but isn't really a "music" video.

really though the best way to find "upright bass pablum" is to just search for "upright bass". i mean, fuck this bullshit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HAGjU9Ldx4

hard to get anything more out of that besides "youtube 'influencers' are trash" though!

Naysaying isn’t necessarily a form of edgelording. There is solace to be derived from the knowledge that other dissenters feel as you do.

xps

that Black Magick SS album is below a 3 now, lol

obviously a good thing to get the Nazi shit off the charts but it does remind me of something annoying about RYM, how sometimes a really good new album in an esoteric style will come out and the fans will jump all over it, then when it makes the charts it winds up getting downvoted by hundreds of people who never would've listened to it anyway. its a fate that's befallen a lot of my favorite albums of the last few years but it doesn't happen to Metal or VGM soundtracks because the general RYM userbase won't go there.

it happens with metal too. it just happened 2 or 3 weeks ago with Sweven who were topping that chart, only to be downvoted by the furious army of fans of the record that was second place by then

"it didn't matter if you liked them both, you had to pick one. you had to fight. in the great Oranssi/Ulcerate War of April 2020, you had to know which side you were on"

n.b. hoping fans of both those bands are much cooler than that obv

any time rym is mentioned on ilx is a dud

otm

any time rym is mentioned on ilx is a dud

fixed.

well then i'm a dud i guess! maybe i should stop going there. maybe i should stop going to youtube too. i haven't quit going to either site and i probably am not going to quit talking about either.

I haven't been there much recently but I have mostly good feelings about it. Didn't realize Pitchfork scores and downvoting was such a big deal.

But I am disappointed to know that people downvote stuff.

i mean i do think the site management are doing a pretty decent job with what they have to work with (constant influx of 4chan people, etc), navigating the social dynamics of brigade-driven culture is i think a valuable skill to learn

3.7 aggregate score

I think with some better algorithms/analysis RYM could gradually strip out all these artificial voting campaigns (both positive and negative), sock votes and troll votes so they don't have an effect anymore. Detect when an account gives hundreds of rap or metal or country releases a half star vote, just flag those accounts silently and don't include any of their votes in the ratings. Detect if a certain album receives a sudden mass influx of low votes, flag & exclude all those accounts too. I believe IMDB already does this, in this day and age of machine learning a site should be able to detect these patterns.

Harder to ban people for handing out 5 stars tbh but I'm all for targeting deliberate downrating. I'm sure it can be tricky to prove though

That's why I don't think bans or warnings are the way to go, you'll only get endless bad faith discussions about proof and evidence as if it's IRL - if the internet has proven anything, never ever engage seriously with trolls online. Just silently exclude all votes from these accounts. If joining a mass troll campaign against Fiona Apple also invalidates your 'serious' ratings, it'll stop quickly. Nobody likes spending time voting/rating into the void.

Nobody likes spending time voting/rating into the void.

you should see ilxor.com

All my terrible opinions from 19 years ago are still there for all to read, some void...

I think with some better algorithms/analysis RYM could gradually strip out all these artificial voting campaigns (both positive and negative), sock votes and troll votes so they don't have an effect anymore. Detect when an account gives hundreds of rap or metal or country releases a half star vote, just flag those accounts silently and don't include any of their votes in the ratings. Detect if a certain album receives a sudden mass influx of low votes, flag & exclude all those accounts too. I believe IMDB already does this, in this day and age of machine learning a site should be able to detect these patterns.

― Siegbran

my understanding is that rym does, in fact, do some variation on this (and may possibly have been doing this before imdb), but it's tricker to implement successfully than you're suggesting (see: the actual imdb rankings)

Oh absolutely I'm sure it isn't easy (esp not as it is happening) but the bigger the ratings dataset gets and the cheaper/standardized these ML tools get, it will get easier in time to clean up the db in retrospect. If there's a desire to do so at all - I mean RYM can also just let all this ratings gaming run wild and not care.

IMDB seems to get a bit better at cleaning up all the miraculous 10/10 ratings and glowing reviews for garbage low-budget/direct-to-streaming films.

Oh absolutely I'm sure it isn't easy (esp not as it is happening) but the bigger the ratings dataset gets and the cheaper/standardized these ML tools get, it will get easier in time to clean up the db in retrospect. If there's a desire to do so at all - I mean RYM can also just let all this ratings gaming run wild and not care.

― Siegbran, Monday, April 20, 2020 6:10 AM (nineteen minutes ago)

oh, sure they could, but they also do have a fairly heavy influx of users from 4chan.

shit gets _ugly_ there. there is a _lot_ of misogyny. some major releases, like norman fucking rockwell, have their shoutboxes deleted because people would go in and post some pretty disgusting misogynist shit and on a popular release like that it's very difficult to keep it moderated. personally i'm not a big fan of "shoutboxes" at all, too much like youtube comments sections. not sure why they were created, but possibly it was some sort of trade-off to try and reduce the number of shitpost/meme reviews - which they have been going through and doing. a lot of my older shitposty reviews have been "unpublished", which overall i think is a good thing in terms of the site direction.

the black magick ss thing is being pretty hotly debated among the mods and admins right now. honestly i'm pretty disappointed that anybody in that crew would be so naive as to argue that they're _not_ nazis, but as far as i can tell it's just one admin who keeps pushing the argument against the better judgement of pretty much everybody else there. we'll see how it turns out; these sort of arguments tend not to have compromise-based solutions.

i think there are a lot of good people on that site, a lot of good people running that site, but obviously they are facing certain challenges.

the fiona apple shoutbox has been tabula rasa'd - let's see if its second chance pays off

the fiona apple shoutbox has been tabula rasa'd - let's see if its second chance pays off

― when I come out, can you introduce me as Jagger (imago)

unfortunately there's not particularly a strong precedent for that sort of thing happening there :(

fwiw I think my experience of RYM is mostly positive b/c I don't really follow 'new music', as in stuff within the Pitchfork/Fantano/RYM chart sphere. I'm one of the guys who votes 25 albums in the year-end polls here and is astonished to see one of them make #68. the 'critically acclaimed' stuff I like with a ton of reviews/ratings tend to be older albums. so I think I'm shielded by the uglier side of the site. that said I do post on the forums every now and then and I definitely get the sense there are a lot of very active users in the 16-21 age range

lol the forums are a nightmare

btw can't hate on a site which produced this masterpiece

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/ELVISPRESLEYAEROSMITHFAN/led_zeppelins_physical_grafitti___40th_anniversary___1975_to_2015/

forums in general are nightmares

this is my favorite web board but it's just a bunch of us middle aged people who have known each other for probably decades now talking about stuff without being interrupted by 16 year old dudes who just discovered radiohead for the first time

i wish there was such a thing as long-term sustainable social spaces on the internet, i'm sad about all the friends i've lost to community collapse, but i guess there aren't long-term sustainable social spaces anywhere else either

Yeah the idea that you can build a large, stable, self-govering/moderating global social space is a dream that already died in the Usenet age.

xpost

The shoutboxes are a terrible idea. I never look a the forums, I can only imagine how bad they are.

Nazi content and pornographic cover art is already flagged and it makes sense for an archival-type site like RYM to extend the (up to now "experimental")

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