www.rateyourmusic.com C/D?

I think these analogies with “wars” is reading too much into it

― Siegbran

well, maybe it's overblown, mainly what i want to get is that there is no "reconciliation" or "consensus" reflected in the rankings - the constant fight between the 5.0s and 0.5s is merely a more extreme version of how records actually get rated on rym. people are incredibly invested in making sure that as many other people as possible like their favorite records and, equally, that as many other people as possible _dislike_ the records they dislike. here, we have a dedicated thread for that and i spend a great deal of my time here gently chiding its chief instigator.

So here's a problem I have, OK? Here's a problem. I looked at RYM's chart of 2020 albums, and I opened a couple dozen tabs, and I went to check some of them out. I can do that from within the browser, they have an embed to Bandcamp from within the browser on a lot of them, and I think that's really cool. It's incredibly easy and convenient and I think Bandcamp is a great site. And I put on a demo record of Machine Girl's and it's some extremely interesting and creative stuff and maybe some of it gets a little darker than I want to deal with right now so I moved on.

And I moved on to this singer-songwriter named A.A. Williams who released her first album earlier this month, and I click on the Bandcamp link, and the first song is titled "All I Asked for (Was to End It All)", and that's what it's about, as Talking Heads would say.

It's a beautiful song, wonderfully performed, extremely honest and direct, and the things that Williams says in that song are things I've said to myself over and over and over again, things I've heard from people I care about over and over and over again, and in 2020, I hear them more and more often. And I am alive, still, and I am working really hard to stay that way, and some of the people I care about are not.

What am I going to say? Fuck art, reducing suffering is all that matters? The hell with that. The hell with that.

And on RYM, well, I'm not going to say anything at all, because it has very well-intentioned standards about what is appropriate and what is not appropriate to say about an album, and what I want to say whenever I hear an album like this, which in 2020 is more and more often, is "For the love of God, don't kill yourself, you are valuable, you are loved, you are worthy, _we need you_." And that is not a review that's written to a standard whereby it is publishable on RYM.

I don't blame Williams for saying what she has to say. I don't think it's in any way wrong of inappropriate for her to speak her truth in the best way she knows how. I celebrate her, celebrate her work, celebrate her _life_.

And I guess RYM celebrates her too, in their own way, by ranking her album, as of the latest charts update, the 162nd best album of 2020, with an average rating of 3.49 out of 5.0 from 191 ratings. Its primary genres are "Post-Rock" and "Singer-Songwriter". Its descriptors are "melancholic, longing, atmospheric, female vocals, male vocals".

Melancholic! Galen would be so fucking proud.

I haven't browsed RYM much, but I think I'll make an account there just as sort of a listening log kind of thing. But this is confusing now as they're planning to change to "Sonemic" which is in beta. Has anyone used that? Am I better off just signing up there instead?

https://rateyourmusic.com/wiki/RYM:Sonemic+FAQ
https://sonemic.com/

damn, when i thought the website couldn't get uglier

i guess it does or will include last.fm-style scrobbling, which is not what I've got in mind as far as logging what I'm listening to (too many different sources...and levels of inattention on my part). Anyway if no one has tried Sonemic I'll give it a go later today and report back.

Well nevermind: "You cannot create an account during this beta. If you have an account on rateyourmusic.com, you can use that to login. Otherwise, please make an account on rateyourmusic.com now and you'll be able to use Sonemic/Cinemos/Glitchwave when the next beta launches."

Earlier, i didn't even notice the search bar on the top at sonemic.com. Looking at a band page, it's seems the same as RYM... for all I know!

I rate these website titles *

the planned rebrand to sonemic is truly baffling. there's also betas for film & games versions of it that have equally terrible names

sonemic -> cinemos is some wonderful aspie shit, i dig

hope the games one is called like... me, sonic

of the aspects of rym that are very web 2.0, the major relaunch/rebrand that nobody wants, that will probably drive away large swaths of the site's existing users when it happens, and that we all go around pretending to ourselves/hoping will never actually happen... is certainly one of them

the games one is glitchwave

now that is a truly abysmal name, what on earth is the rationale there lol

'we have developed a games rating database and community, and we have named it after a niche, possibly fictional musical genre'

This must be the longest rebranding operation in history, the Sonemic name (and Indiegogo funding for the rebrand) was announced in 2015, I expect the whole thing will be slowly buried.

Neptunian Maximalism album rules btw--makes a great third w the first Obake album & Zu's Cortar Todo

A complaint: why do we have to check a box when we want our reviews made public? That makes it seem like private reviews are the default for most people.

I thought this weird design choice wouldn't last but it has.

Discovered "customize this page" on the bottom... hides all reviews forever. This site rules now.

A major problem with the development of Sonemic is that they're taking the suggestions from the nerdiest of users. If anything buries the site, that will be it. But yeah I'm not really sorry that it's taking them forever to migrate the site. Which I can't explain even imagining all the trouble in rewriting all the code.
They hired a communication person, which is a really good idea.
The site is awesome to be honest, the problem is the demographics. Too young, bad nerdy taste.

bad nerdy taste

Care to expand on that?

I dunno, the maintainers seem to me to be building the site that they want, and would probably need to hire more than a comms person if It's ever going to have wider appeal.

It's quirky to use (Kate otm "web 2.0") but seems to be the best thing around for actively keeping track of your listening. It doesn't touch Discogs for keeping track of a collection, but ratings there seem like an afterthought.

Care to expand on that?
― pomenitul, Friday, July 31, 2020 7:21 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean looking for qualities in music that cannot be played in any social setting, a bedroom cult(ure) of the niche, obscure, subculture, difficult, hardcore, maximalist, minimalist, original, novelty. It's a little tiring and unhealthy and not ideal to engage music together. I'm sure others would paint a picture where RYM is painfully safe and middle of the road, which is not necessarily irreconcilable. I'm pretty sure it's a question of age and perspective, I speak as someone in his 30s who is feeling more like consolidating his taste and finding instant jams than lending his ear to everything. But RYM was very satisfying for me from 2007-2012, and I've stayed, maybe it's tough love.

Sounds like good nerdy taste to me (I'm in my mid-thirties and have been like this my whole life, mind you).

I can't really explain why it codes as bad nerdy taste, but what I see as the primary RYM community definitely gives off bad nerdy vibes. Something very solipsistic about it, maybe? Just the worst possible take on Nabozo's description. I feel like, basically, the outspoken folks on there are engaging with music for a completely different reason than me and I just don't understand it, too much gatekeeping and canon-building and inventing subgenres and trying way too hard to pretend zolo is a real thing*. And fucking Bull of Heaven.

*don't @ me frogbs ;)

“bedroom cult(ure) of the niche, obscure, subculture, difficult, hardcore, maximalist, minimalist, original, novelty”

none of these things are bad necessarily but the dominant rym userbase tends to define & identify signifiers of them in the most tediously limited & clearly demographically-conditioned ways. a bit like the wire or early pitchfork but a lot redditier

^^^yes, this.

Can you say what's wrong with canon-building? Is it being too hasty or something like that?

Too centralized and authoritarian, I assume? We all have our head-canons, though.

How online users build anything other than personal canons?

Well, RYM does aggregate personal canons into charts that may or may not seek to appear authoritative.

Right. They should just be less Redditious about it.

Could just be me but when I spend too much time on RYM I'm left with the sense that their community prioritizes/emphasizes canon-building as part of the process of listening whereas I feel like it's something that should just sort of happen, it's fun to make lists every once in a while but it feels weird to make that an end.

I think the problem is general impatience to put out their opinions, same with the ratings and reviews (and all of you ilxor people who think it's reasonable to have a best of year list before the year is even finished! Febuary is the best time to reflect on the previous year). Forming a canon requires some time and reflection.

Too centralized and authoritarian, I assume? We all have our head-canons, though.

― pomenitul

needs more intersectionality i would say

as little as i trust "canons" in general, i particularly don't trust any "canon" derived primarily from fantano and /mu/. interrogating the systems that generate hegemony in any form is a pivotal necessity.

“bedroom cult(ure) of the niche, obscure, subculture, difficult, hardcore, maximalist, minimalist, original, novelty”

none of these things are bad necessarily but the dominant rym userbase tends to define & identify signifiers of them in the most tediously limited & clearly demographically-conditioned ways.
― the state is bad (Left), Saturday, August 1, 2020 5:53 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I agree. It's also a lack of diversity both in music and music appreciation, for a community that perceives itself as open-minded and free of prejudice.

I question the critical abilities of a community that rates Tool as highly as RYM does, but I'm also very aware that maybe the problem is with me.

ok look I have no idea if "Zolo" is a real thing or not I just know that almost everything I've heard that's been tagged that way I've liked, in fact that one popular Zolo list on RYM really did lead me to a lot of cool stuff

I guess my take is that Zolo is more a supertype, like a color. same way you can have a "green car" but not just a "green", I dont know if there's such a thing as just "Zolo". maybe Albert Marcœur which is a little too wawaweewa even for me

my current take is that "zolo" is a retroactively constructed and arbitrary genre - but that's not, honestly, the crux of my discomfort. none of the '80s artists who are currently classified as "zolo" would have identified themselves as such at the time. that makes me uncomfortable to a certain extent, there's an element of appropriation to retroactively canonize, say, kate bush as a "zolo goddess" or whatever, _particularly_ given the demographics of the people who are doing so. it's... the framing, the genres rym praise and uplift and in some cases basically _create_ - the same sort of thing that's been happening with RA of late.

I really like that that retroactive construction of genres and I feel like there's a little bit of that going on even in fully fledged ones. As long as you know the musicians never intended this.

okay, i just looked at the "zolo" description thing on rym and wow, that shit is pretty overbearing and pompous. feels like some dude decided to make up a genre for their favorite records and simultaneously didn't want to just say, "ya, i like new wave-era rock music."

feels like some dude decided to make up a genre for their favorite records and simultaneously didn't want to just say, "ya, i like new wave-era rock music."

― Totally different head. Totally. (Austin)

this is literally where zolo came from

how quaint.

Was zolo coined by specific user such as imago?

this is as good a time and place as any to announce my one-man record solo zolo. please do not categorize me

idk it's definitely a specific subset of 'new wave-era rock music' and I think it extends to some prog records as well...actually when I think of Zolo I think first of Gentle Giant

again as "overbearing and pompous" as it is I think this is one of the strengths of RYM. even if "some dude decided to make up a genre for their favorite records" this dude has similar taste to me so this sort of thing is very useful

rym is full of weirdos like that, heirs to the "weird 78 collector" tradition that Camaraderie is so well-acquainted with. any time i get digging into weird old records, because i am a weird old lady who is uncommonly obsessed with the music of the 1970s, i find that whatever the record, it is already on A List compiled by this kind of disturbing guy who goes by Zaragon (and who I sometimes get mixed up with Nabozo, sorry, Nabozo, you don't deserve that).

seriously, look at this guy's page and tell me it isn't some batshit crazy timecube shit:

https://rateyourmusic.com/~Zaragon

"maximal trilustrum"? that's not a thing, sir. i'd tell him to his face, except that i have a strong sense that it is important for my self-preservation to put as much distance as possible between me and him.

and also because, shrug, i guess he has heard a whole shitload of cool records i haven't yet.

my new favorite genre is called ozlo. it's french pop music sung by people whose native language is not french. all we got so far is april march, dick annegarn, and louis phillipe. but yeah: ozlo's fucking rad!!

this is all making rym seem more endearing than I assumed it was just a few minutes ago tbh

there's a guy who exclusively reviews one-off 70s singles from the Midwest, I love that guy

xps. louis phillipe is French!

No true ILMer can seriously root against music obsessives who flaunt their insufferably niche tastes.