www.rateyourmusic.com C/D?

like Woolworths makes HMV obsolete?

seriously, NO.

I like rateyourmusic fine but it is anything but thorough, detailed, informative as any kind of online catalouge.

Especially so for the kinds of music (dahnce) that don't tend to be consumed in an album format.

AMG made itself obsolete...

I may have been bitching unfairly upthread btw. It DID look like an incredibly daunting process at first but (if you're fast with keyboard shortcuts & window tabbing & can get iTunes to fart out some kind of text list in advance...) I actually found it pretty easy to get my collection on there in the end. ok I needed a spare afternoon but yeah, it's got some fun features and some moderately useful ones too.

The update has certainly made RYM a bit more user-friendly.

Speaking of the overall lists, I guess the weakness is that bands with a very lojal fanbase are becoming a bit overrated. People who couldn't give a fuck about Grateful Dead, Rush, Elvis Presley, Guns'n'Roses, Michael Jackson or Kiss usually don't bother rating their output, which means their (often fanatical) fans are the only ones who rate their albums, giving them a very high position in those overall lists because most of their votes are from fanatical fans.

(Michael Jackson has enough haters the effect isn't quite the same as with the others though)

fandango, I read yesterday the site creator is tinkering with a way to upload lists to RYM in different formats. too late for you I know.

heh. tbh now I've gone through the whole process I can sort of understand why the idea was difficult in the first place!

but it'd be good for users to get a head start that way if poss. yeah and later on sort out things like format, release edition etc if they wanted

I guess I'm not really sure what Discogs offers that Wikipedia does not in terms of detail--yes there is plenty on Discogs that is not on Wikipedia but most of it could be transferred, since the data is factual--no copyright issues. And then Discogs is proprietary, though of course w/Wikipedia you've got the vandalism issues. But the ratings/comments features in Discogs seem far less developed than in RYM, and RYM provides export of data, and there is some attempt to account for variant releases... Discogs has the shopping thing--but who cares? I already know where to shop for music online. Basically I'm thinking about contributing/cataloging and trying to figure out which is best.

xpost: More like Target makes KMart obsolete.

i use discogs (mostly to get info on dance releases I want to add to the rym database) but it just seems poorly laid out. For certain genres, it happens to be where the action is for now but I don't see what it does as good or better than RYM.

So there's 10 more years of data since this thread was last updated. I find RYM quite useful as a gauge for where to start with a new artist and an interesting look at general consensus for artists I like. But I'm sure there's issues with the site: confirmation bias, a general trend towards rating early work much more highly than later work (which may be justified, of course, but often is for other reasons), a general regression towards the mean, etc.

A comment about Wire's ratings over the last ten years being mediocre inspired this revive. Compare with Killing Joke, who've been around a similar amount of time and whose ratings are pretty consistently good.

The usefulness of RYM ratings has definitely improved over time, and you quickly learn to filter out all the wildly overrated prog.

As a music discovery tool it's fantastic, I find way more interesting stuff by clicking/filtering through RYM than through ILM, webreviews or Spotify, especially from outside the Anglophone sphere.

It's not just that there's a general trend towards rating early work much more highly than later work in terms of one band/artists discography, but I usually find that when new releases in general are rated over on RYM, unless it's a blockbuster record that has universal acclaim across the board from the off, new releases are usually treated initially with skepticism or more harshly until the album has been around for a while and then you'll see more of a clearer consensus crystallise.

I know it's been explained in some other thread, but how is it again the site can be used to find music?

Say I'm interested in finding great current albums, regardless of genre, could I use RYM?

For example, looking at the overall charts for the decade so far, it looks a bit of a mess because everyone is in such a rush to consume new stuff and not enough time has been spent with the records. It's hard to argue with the overall charts from the '60s up to at least the middle of the '00s, but I reckon it'll be another 10-15 years before the overall chart from this decade begins to make sense. It seems to me that more people are listening to more music than ever, but have become relatively crap at judging it.

(x-post)

RYM is great. It's pretty much a database that allows you to thoroughly explore genres.

Focusing just on the overall charts or scores is stupid. You can go as obscure as you want.

I've always found the lists very useful for finding new music, the more personal the better. I don't really bother with charts because consensus is boooooring.

I like checking the current years highest rated releases by genre. It's a good help in part keeping up with things I may have missed.

xxpost:

Well yes, you can get a lot out of the charts if you know how to use them, and you can go as obscure as you want and it's a great way of finding things you'd otherwise miss if you concentrated on the overall charts. But that's not what I was talking about.

Yes the ratings for this decade are seriously deflated. To adjust for this, you have to look at the ratings relative to their time period. When I want to listen to this decade's albums, I filter out albums from all other decades. Otherwise, they get buried way too deep in the charts.

The overall chart is only useful for viewing the canon.

Again, that's not what I was talking about. I wasn't talking about the overall chart since the dawn of time, I was talking about the overall chart for this decade.

usually its best to find a few users you align with and see what they highly rate. I've discovered a lot of good stuff that way.

I've been using the site for 10 years so it's responsible directly or indirectly for 90% of the music I like. I've learned of ILM existence somewhat through it (could be related to afrobeats but not sure).
If you know nothing about music, there are many exciting options of discovery (lists, playing with the charts, finding interesting users), if you don't let yourself get disoriented and can retain some independence. There just aren't that many similar websites so...
Even though the site has diversified since 2003, and become decently accurate, there are still some pretty deep demographic biases, a lot of young american guys, especially on the forums that used to be more lively, and there's a major influence from major web publications. Though quite a few discrete people have awesome knowledge. So it's definitely about how you use it. As far as the ratings go, I find it regrettable that they have leveled out, so looking for high ratings makes sense only for if you want obvious classics. And some genres will never receive considerable attention (reggae, soul, jazz, all things edm, folk etc), or serious esteem (on the pop and dance side), but it's to be expected.
Nostalgia or not, the period from 2007 to 2010 had a pretty exciting dynamic: lot of people challenging (boring) classics and a lot of people defending the (rightful) classics. People were trying hard to open up in every direction. Then at some point everybody started following Kanye West, Beyoncé and other major artists (who I also like).
I'm more into reading these days so that's okay.

okay so where do I start - do I have to rate ~100 albums for some algorithm to suggest users w similar taste? or do I browse popular lists? are there lists you follow that you'd recommend?

agree that consensus picks tend to be boring, following the acclaimed music 2017 albums list is not exactly great for recommendations

used to rely a lot on p4ks bnm system, but for reasons beyond me I don't like much of the music they recommend these days

Users aren't suggested to you, mostly you have to read people's reviews on the release pages and add them as a friend/favourite if they appeal to you. Can't deny there are plenty of users who just spout utter shit most of the time (I'm probably one of them tbf) but I've learnt to recognise names and skip past them.

As far as lists go there are some that I've found a treasure trove but I don't really know what you're into

Oh and you don't have to rate music at all, some people don't.

I like the site and use it to figure out new releases that I should check out.

It has a bias towards metal, which as a hesher I like, even though within that bias is a penchant for metallic genres that I don't love (such as power metal which is really big over there) so that all evens out.

My favorite thing to do is just look at a chart for the current year and go down the list and check out things on Spotify or Bandcamp that I haven't heard before.

thanks for the advice, I'll try and see what I can do with it

I think it's more of an active research tool - as opposed to something like Spotify or last.fm, where the research tends to be fairly passive and the recommendations come to you. Just start exploring; look for relatively obscure albums you like and on that album page, look down the left hand side for which lists that album appears on. Chances are it'll appear on a bunch of 'my top 3326 albums' but also on a 'more albums that sound like x' type list.

this approach seems to be working (found quite a few ilxor lists that way) but most lists popping up were annual favorite lists - kinda boring compared to like, thematic personal (not +1000 records) lists

anyway, thx for all the input

I find it a useful tool.
Helps to find out what lps I don't know yet are like. Also to know what is worth getting from Piratebay etc.
Have seen some mistakes recently, things lie the Ten Years After 2cd series being missing from the releases. Think they came out in 2015. had noticed they weren't up on Amazon either but I have the first couple of them.

But it is a place that I go to quite frequently and it is rewarding to read those of teh reviews I can read for the most [part. There are a load of them in other languages which I struggle with though.

RYM is awesome but it gets a bit hivemindy sometimes, especially when something starts shooting up the year-end charts too fast and the taste police feel the obligation to shoot it down. That's probably the reason why metal seems to rate so high, non-metal fans don't feel the need to chime in the way they would on anything else. Also I find my best reviews getting axed a lot which is a bit irritating. But its still a great site, I'm on it all the time.

Yeah the downrating thing really sucks, e.g. you'll see a lot of people giving the lowest possible ratings to pop albums the instant they are added to the database. And I'm still convinced very few of the people who rated Lulu actually heard it, but I don't think they had the same agenda as the taste police, that felt more like an lol meme thing for some reason.

That being said, RYM is probably the site I spend the most time on these days and have discovered so much music as a result.

These are my two personal favorite lists that I find myself constantly revisiting:

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Lydfrabaksiden/the_all_time_greatest_records/

http://rateyourmusic.com/list/dotadot/in_a_silent_way__ambient_and_minimal_jazz/

I basically use rym to find the album to start with when i discover a new artist. In that case i go for the highest rated album. If i don't like that one usually the artist is not for me. There are exceptions like talking heads (never got the appeal of "remain in light" but the gorgeous "name of this band" is rated almost as highly) but often this works perfectly for me. The ratings algorithm is quite elaborate, eg it favours albums which have many ratings regardless of the rating itself. Besides that i sometimes scroll through the reviews.

I like RYM, but a lot of the reviewers exhibit one of the most annoying tics of internet prog nerds: treating genres like eternally fixed categories.

okay so where do I start - do I have to rate ~100 albums for some algorithm to suggest users w similar taste? or do I browse popular lists? are there lists you follow that you'd recommend?

What I do is I go to the page of an album I love (ideally one that's not part of the canon) and check out the "lists" section to the left. That shows every user-made list that includes this particular album. So from here I can go and check out these people's lists and find albums that I had never heard of and like-minded people whom I can follow, check their ratings etc.

Additionally there's a recommendation system but you have to rate albums first, obviously.

That seems to be the best approach, yup

I find my best reviews getting axed a lot which is a bit irritating.

― frogbs, Monday, 3 April 2017 16:45

Axed? Do you mean deleted? Never heard of this.

rym is nice but i've found it to be less helpful as i've been trying to get into electronic music for the past year. it's sort of a weak spot in the knowledge base- discogs isn't as navigable for me but folks there know _way_ more about electronic and dance music.

There are some electronica subgenres where RYM excels, like "industrial techno". However, there's a definite disinterest in dance music, per se.

Always found the lack of folk music reviews puzzling. There's definitely lots of folk fans around but surely the really dedicated fans don't all hate computers?

I like to play around with genre/country combinations when filtering the overall chart by getting it to, say, list synthpop releases from Italy or something.

Axed? Do you mean deleted? Never heard of this.

it's happened several times to me - I write a one or two sentence review, something I think is pretty funny, as sort of a placeholder. then later I go to update it and it's greyed out, it doesn't display on the page and I can't update it. idk how many of my reviews it's happened to. at least a couple.

the irony of course being that the short review is probably better than the longer one that I would've written

They have a policy against placeholders or joke reviews?

lol @ this guy's rating system:

https://rateyourmusic.com/~Entracte7

have encountered that person under different usernames. wish him only ill

disappointed they havent written the reviews to match

presence of arditti string quartet is like the canary in the coalmine of a fucking twat

György Ligeti said of Evgeni Koroliov's take on Bach's Die Kunst der Fuge that 'If I am to be allowed only one musical work on a desert island, then I should choose Koroliov's Bach, because forsaken, starving and dying of thirst, I would listen to it right up to my last breath'. I choose to believe that Ligeti the RYMer would have given it a full 5 stars. Entracte7, however, only gave it 4.5 stars (one of only five records out of 13,276 to have been granted this most prestigious distinction), because he's just that much of a monocled gentleman.

you can include me on the list too, username is BradNelson

oh you do have a lot of 5 stars

i pretty much only rate albums i would give five stars to

i assume rym does not factor in any of my ratings lol

Getting all kinds of security warnings and pop-ups I haven't seen until today, this is worrying because this seems like an escalation from all the other pop-ups you need to click away, is this just going to get worse?