Yes, saw this earlier - definitely a good move on their part.
― emil.y, Wednesday, 22 November 2017 14:24 (six years ago) link
just coming here to post about this
smart move and agreed on the numerical ratings
― the late great, Wednesday, 22 November 2017 19:23 (six years ago) link
also: this one is really heavy
https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=599
― the late great, Wednesday, 22 November 2017 19:42 (six years ago) link
Right decision to get rid of the polls, for many reasons!
― saer, Wednesday, 22 November 2017 23:20 (six years ago) link
I've noticed lately that the reviews - singles especially - skew towards names and acts I'm not already familiar with, and the ones I am it's usually because they're on labels that veer experimental. I mean obviously house/techno/etc bobbins naturally skews towards the anonymous and temporal already but it's wonderful that they're acknowledging that they want to use the power of taste-shaping to reframe the discussion. It's not like the predictable suspects like Dixon or Jackmaster or Bicep need their names out there in the RA poll to get people to come see them anyway either.
― boxedjoy, Wednesday, 22 November 2017 23:42 (six years ago) link
as someone who disagrees w almost all polls always, i dont get the anti-polls thing. our contributors were overwhelmingly white & male so we decided to disguise that by doing away w/ the evidence, more like
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, 23 November 2017 00:06 (six years ago) link
I like the stuff on scenes I'm interested in (Montevideo, Frankfurt, Seoul) and some of the longer form stuff is good (and i generally dont like words!)
I've zero interest in Dixon, Jackmaster or Bicep and the polls just seemed to be their own world made up of that. They just looked like the English national football team lineup, and probably played like them too. Or Everton, no, West Brom. bloody hell, west brom, no wonder they canned it!
― saer, Thursday, 23 November 2017 00:11 (six years ago) link
They probably learned the lessons of the US election and brexit and decided to quit while they were reasonably ahead, Dixon loses his top spot and starting place against Bournemouth to Trump, what a way to go out
― saer, Thursday, 23 November 2017 00:14 (six years ago) link
xp it's not just hiding it though, is it? i think you're being uncharitable deej. you could argue that they're not letting demographics set their editorial agenda. i'm personally not crazy about the steps they're taking in the direction of becoming a "high culture" site but at least they're taking a stand on it, right?
― the late great, Thursday, 23 November 2017 00:33 (six years ago) link
our contributors were overwhelmingly white & male so we decided to disguise that by doing away w/ the evidence, more like
yeah...
― flopson, Thursday, 23 November 2017 01:28 (six years ago) link
i guess id rather see them consider what a list that takes into account those concerns would look like rather than ceding authority to millions of interpersonal conversations
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, 23 November 2017 02:17 (six years ago) link
to me it feels like abandoning responsibility rather than taking it
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, 23 November 2017 02:18 (six years ago) link
also the site already does tonnes of 'unranked scene-surveying features'
― flopson, Thursday, 23 November 2017 02:20 (six years ago) link
I think it’s a reasonable experiment, might turn out just ok, might flatten the landscape a little
― mh, Thursday, 23 November 2017 02:27 (six years ago) link
will it? or will it hurt the many smaller scale artists who would be boosted when seen among big-ticket artists who already have huge publicity machines behind them
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, 23 November 2017 02:59 (six years ago) link
seems to me that people haven't really thought through what happens to power structures when power is ostensibly abdicated
they’re still making lists, just not numbered afaik? like a roundup of works people liked, maybe I misread it
just no aggregating picks to create a top ten where an album one person loved doesn’t get equal billing because no one else was into that fringe movement. so that album is in there with everything else, no ranking
― mh, Thursday, 23 November 2017 03:25 (six years ago) link
so Dixon might be in there but there’s nothing distinguishing his single from Elysia Crampton, each just gets a blurb
― mh, Thursday, 23 November 2017 03:27 (six years ago) link
an unranked list is good
― flopson, Thursday, 23 November 2017 03:54 (six years ago) link
yeah, my understanding was they were just doing away with the numerical ranking specifically, maybe i’m wrong. i thought the point was that creating a hierarchy was harmful, not that curating a list was. they can’t escape curating anyway
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Thursday, 23 November 2017 05:28 (six years ago) link
I don’t really think the heirarchy is “harmful” lol
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Thursday, 23 November 2017 06:37 (six years ago) link
kinda agree this is about embarrassment towards their readership, maybe dislike. i guess it began as a prog/trance site and there's prob always been that element to the readership, somewhere along the line there have been various efforts to make it some sort of intellectualised (and maybe american) take on dance music without ever really losing some of the old readers. ra's identity struggles are just a microcosm of dance music's version of the same, the music is simultaneously cerebral and physical, intellectual and fun, ephemeral, hard to pin down. true of all music i suppose and a problem for all music writing but worse with dance music given its structural rules.
i mean i accept that the polls were leading to homogenised results but they were polls of the site's readers. essentially this is an admission that they don't like their readers or wish their readers were different in some way, i can't tell exactly what that difference is though because i'm not sure many people voting for their favourite dj or tune think "have i been fair and representative here" - they prob just think "i took an e at dixon and had a wonderful night"
if it's just an editorial decision that nobody needs to read the bullshit results of a huge internet-wide poll then by all means go for it but it's not like that makes for as good an editorial reason as saying you're doing it because your readers are bigots.
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Thursday, 23 November 2017 09:10 (six years ago) link
Among their stated points for the decision: uncomfortableness with erasure of non-white dudes in their poll results
also i don't think this take is borne out by the statement. for better or worse they don't mention race actually - there are certainly a lot of white men in the ra polls but it's not all white men. the statement seems to clearly suggest this is more about gender.
i think it's a kind of dangerous game to acknowledge, on your own site, "hey audience, your choices aren't diverse enough, both musically but more importantly when we asked you your favourite dj we expected your tastes to feature more women"
who exactly has failed here? or what exactly is failing?
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Thursday, 23 November 2017 09:20 (six years ago) link
even their internal polls were skewed male though. last years album list had only two female artists in the top 20
― damian green is people (NickB), Thursday, 23 November 2017 09:33 (six years ago) link
that's p much what i'm getting at.
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Thursday, 23 November 2017 09:33 (six years ago) link
they clearly stated that they thought the hierarchy reinforced through their lists was harmful because it reinforced certain power dynamics in the dance community xpost to D-40
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Thursday, 23 November 2017 14:33 (six years ago) link
agreed that they're admitting discomfort with their readership, but the response to the decision in the comments is overwhelmingly positive. which is weird b/c the last time i remember reading comments on RA a few years ago they were mostly terrible
― karl...arlk...rlka...lkar..., Thursday, 23 November 2017 14:36 (six years ago) link
yeah same, not familiar with the site at all these days really.
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Thursday, 23 November 2017 18:05 (six years ago) link
1) I've never heard of Dixon
2) deej that's just silly, there won't be a lack of headlining acts just because there no ranked poll
3) Ranked lists are the patriarchy
― change display name (Jordan), Thursday, 23 November 2017 22:34 (six years ago) link
Dixon was #1 on their “best dj” polled list from 2013-2016
― mh, Thursday, 23 November 2017 22:55 (six years ago) link
I’m pro ranked lists & anti the results, it’s the results that are patriarchal not the lists themselves
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, 24 November 2017 00:12 (six years ago) link
I don't know, not to over-generalize, but I think of an obsession with ranking and scoring things as an extremely male trait.
Btw I've only started reading RA in the last year or two, but I get a lot out of it. The comments however are hilarious/terrible, of course. And people seem bent on interpreting the review scores as objective across the site (as in "you really think record A is better than record B, that has a lower score?!"), when it seems pretty clear that it's usually situated within the context of an artist's previous work, or the maybe the genre they're working in.
― change display name (Jordan), Friday, 24 November 2017 22:01 (six years ago) link
flag on the play. essentialism. offense number 79. 15 yard penalty. automatic 1st down
― -_- (jim in vancouver), Friday, 24 November 2017 22:24 (six years ago) link
if only tim had done a poll
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Saturday, 25 November 2017 01:36 (six years ago) link
i'm fairly sure i don't like much of what dixon has been playing for the last 3/4 years, tho not paid much attention, most of that crew seem to have gravitated towards a sort of prog nouveau
equally i think it's good he became massively popular solely on the basis of djing with barely any production along the way - for a long time he was one of the best selectors and 100 times better than the producer-centric crap that passes for dance music or dj sets on this board.
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Saturday, 25 November 2017 01:39 (six years ago) link
don't read much on the site but pod + https://www.residentadvisor.net/tracks are essential
i didn't realize their eoy lists were crowdsourced/reader polls; surprisingly good if that's true. but re these concerns they should just switch to editorial list and hire more non-whitemale writers
― flopson, Saturday, 25 November 2017 02:04 (six years ago) link
otm
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Saturday, 25 November 2017 03:44 (six years ago) link
the top dj list is a complete ouroboros, much like a lot of dj lists. there’s no easy solution, but when high profile events feel they have to have top-ranked djs, and then the attendees are the same who vote in polls for top dj, just creates a death spiral. uncreative promoters who have large events and have money but no curation skills aren’t helping
― mh, Saturday, 25 November 2017 04:44 (six years ago) link
Not really sure who you mean by that last sentence but while he was an amazing DJ I'm not sure he'd have been able to build his rep in the same way if he wasn't so closely associated with Innervisions. Like he was a fantastic remixer (the Mark E mix in particular I still love), but it feels like he was able to come up at least partly off the back of Ame and Henrik Schwarz's production works, before completely eclipsing them as a DJ.
Dunno what he's playing now but if I had to guess he's moved towards a more Tale of Us-type festival friendly thing?
Can we have a Search & Destroy on the podcasts from this year? I think I listened to every single one up until about April or May and then tailed off. A lot of fairly nondescript grey warehouse techno in there.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 25 November 2017 11:59 (six years ago) link
still not the same, to me, as the usual route of becoming famous for a few productions and then becoming a hugely popular dj for being okay at it. he was doing it for a long time before the huge popularity too. he dj'ed his way to the top more than many of the rest of these lists.
as i say, don't care for him now but he's done enough good stuff to merit respect.
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Saturday, 25 November 2017 12:28 (six years ago) link
Yeah fair enough, I just looked at their 2016 list and it's full of those sorts of names, unsurprised they canned the poll tbh. I guess production means a shortcut onto the festival circuit for a lot of these guys and that's how they end up there. The overlap between that poll and the group of DJs who seem to be on every other European festival bill is massive as well.
― Matt DC, Saturday, 25 November 2017 12:43 (six years ago) link
Can we have a Search & Destroy on the podcasts from this year?
I've not really connected with any of the podcasts in a long while, even the ones from DJ's I like (Saoirse, Del Garda). Whenever it does pop up that there's a new podcast it always seems to be someone called Blarg or Morlock playing DVS1 records. This is what happens when you let people have black and white photos for their profile
― saer, Saturday, 25 November 2017 12:44 (six years ago) link
thank u saer for giving me some possible dj aliases if I ever get a gig
― mh, Saturday, 25 November 2017 15:55 (six years ago) link
― mh, Saturday, 25 November 2017 15:55
Have a scan at the Brighton teamsheet today if you need any more
Dunk, Gross, Proepper, Knockaert and Bong
― saer, Saturday, 25 November 2017 16:16 (six years ago) link
I don't get into many of the podcasts either, the only ones I remember from this year are Egyptrixx and M.E.S.H. (both great). I really like their features and interviews though.
Some of the Exchange podcasts are worthwhile too.
― change display name (Jordan), Saturday, 25 November 2017 19:39 (six years ago) link
I listened to a bit of the one with Janina, but it as people talking and I started to feel tense so I turned it off again
― saer, Wednesday, 29 November 2017 15:44 (six years ago) link
I don't think this is an issue of RA's demographics so much as the demographics of readers of music sites in general. almost all readers' polls end up like this
― sick, fucking funny, and well tasty (katherine), Wednesday, 29 November 2017 17:31 (six years ago) link
there's definitely something self-selecting about the people who love to rank things as opposed to people who just like to share impressions and talk about stuff they like
― mh, Wednesday, 29 November 2017 19:06 (six years ago) link
No headphone today but I see Etienne has done number 602. I liked his record on Undersound last year so hopefully this has some cheeky miscreants downing pints in deckchairs or failing that some records with moody dockers with dangerous dogs is also acceptable as long as they have a heart of gold and hats askew
― saer, Tuesday, 12 December 2017 11:44 (six years ago) link
https://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=610
― the late great, Monday, 5 February 2018 03:48 (six years ago) link