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Rate Your Music

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Rate Your Music
The interior of a white circle is decorated with waves of varying shades of blue and the darkest blue on the bottom has a solid bubble above it.
Type of site
Social cataloging and community
Available inEnglish (main site)
Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish (forums)
URL
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional and free (required to view and post threads on forums)
Users1.2 million (August 2024)
LaunchedDecember 24, 2000
Current statusActive

Rate Your Music (often abbreviated to RYM) is an online encyclopedia of music releases and films. Users can catalog items from their personal collection, review them, and assign ratings in a five-star rating system. The site also features community-based charts that track highest-rated releases.

History

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The first version of the site, nicknamed "RYM 1.0," allowed users to rate and catalog releases, as well as to write reviews, create lists[1][2] and add artists and releases to the database.

In May 2009, Rate Your Music started to add films to its database.[3]

Features

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The main idea of the website is to allow the users to add music releases of many types including but not limited to albums, EPs, singles, mixtapes, DJ mixes, and bootlegs to the database and to rate them. The rating system uses a scale of minimum of a half-star (or 0.5 points) to a maximum of five stars (or 5 points).[4] Users can likewise leave reviews for RYM entries as well as create user profiles.[5][6] Rate Your Music is generated jointly by the registered user community (artists, releases, biographies, etc.); however, the majority of new, edited content must be approved by a moderator to prevent virtual vandalism.

Statistics

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As of February 2023, RYM had over 729,000 user-created lists ranging from "popular lists" to "ultimate box sets," which cover various musical genres, including obscure micro-genres.[2][7]

As of August 2024, the site had over 1.2 million users registered, with over 6.2 million releases added and 137 million ratings.[1]

Impact

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Rate Your Music has been credited with helping previously unknown artists and albums rise to popularity, most prominently Have a Nice Life's debut album Deathconsciousness and Sweet Trip's 2003 album Velocity : Design : Comfort.[8]

In 2019, Vice and The Ringer credited Rate Your Music for maintaining the popularity of the band Duster, which had recently reformed after being inactive since 2000.[9][10] Pitchfork and Junkee noted the website's impact on the career of the anonymous South Korean musician Parannoul, who said that he felt more anxiety than joy after his 2021 album To See the Next Part of the Dream topped the website's album chart for the year.[11][12]

Chat Pile guitarist Luther Manhole said, "Our popularity on RYM definitely contributed to us having this career-type-thing, 100%.", as the band's self-released debut EP topped the weekly charts due to fortunate timing.[13]

Reception

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Rate Your Music has been received generally favorably. M.O.V.I.N [UP]'s Maurício Angelo praised RYM as "the best guide to discovering new music, in all styles, of any tempo".[14] Hypebot staff found Rate Your Music "snobby and multilingual and people come to show off their various incredible music collections. I’ve loved it for ages".[15] Wired's Andy Baio deemed it "quirky".[16] Radio Wave's Karel Veselý praised Rate Your Music and Discogs as "[t]he cult music portals".[17]

Flashmode Arabia staff commended RYM as "a fantastic way to discover new music" but critiqued its user experience.[18] The Daily Star's Deeparghya Dutta Barau called it "one of those hip sites that offer functionality over aesthetics".[19] Similarly, Newonce's staff was somewhat critical, stating the site was "Extremely ugly visually (its creators like the consistency: RYM has not changed the layout to this day), but quite useful".[20]

Centuries of Sound founder James Errington said "[he consulted] websites like Rate Your Music and Acclaimed Music to pick top hits" for his year-by-year mixtapes of the 20th century.[21] Pigeons and Planes's Adrienne Black highlighted the forums, stating, "if you haven't already spent half your day exploring the above, there are the highly active, engaged threads to dive in to".[1] Evolver.fm's Eliot Van Buskirk advised readers to "Keep a wishlist on rateyourmusic.com".[22]

In an interview with PopMatters, American electronic musician Skylar Spence noted that he would use Discogs and Rate Your Music to find "a lot of cool, old, hidden treasures that way".[23]

Other references

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In an article previewing an upcoming Phish Halloween concert, in which the band traditionally covers an album in its entirety, JamBase's Scott Bernstein noted that all but Waiting for Columbus "[were] in the top 700 on RateYourMusic, which compiles fan ratings".[24]

Selecting "Logan Rock Witch" from Richard D. James Album as their favorite Aphex Twin track, The Quietus's John Doran remarked "this should result in something that sounds like a mad man’s breakfast of kooky cacophony. (And a quick look at Rate Your Music reveals that plenty of self-professed AFX fans actually do see it this way.)"[25]

Appraising Kairon; IRSE!'s album Ruination, Stereogum's Doug Moore saw that the band "built a big following on Rate Your Music by combining the slightly heftier variants of prog and pysch (sic) with shoegaze".[26]

In a piece concerning Mark E. Smith, Patrin noted that The Fall's This Nation's Saving Grace was "the album that Rate Your Music still ranks as their best by a sliver as of less than 24 hours after Smith’s death".[27]

Covering the Japanese band Fishmans album 98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare, The Michigan Daily's Sayan Ghosh noted the "classic music lover’s past-time of perusing through internet boards such as Rate Your Music".[28]

In response to Swedish symphonic metal band Therion's album Beloved Antichrist, Stereogum's Ian Chainey opined that "extremely fickle user bases of Rate Your Music, Encyclopaedia Metallum, and Prog Archives all rate Therion’s albums highly".[29]

Commenting on the release of Retribution Body's album Self Destruction, Tiny Mix Tapes's Lijah Fosl offered "a reminder that 'dark ambient' is more than just a random rateyourmusic.com categorization".[30]

In a review for American musician Yves Tumor's album Safe in the Hands of Love, The Brown Daily Herald's Katherine Ok associated plunderphonics with "crate-digging, list-obsessed 'Rate Your Music' users".[31]

The website gained a decent amount of traction in February 2023 after music sites reported on Kendrick Lamar's 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly overtaking Radiohead's 1997 album OK Computer as the top rated album on the site.[32][33]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Black, Adrienne (April 10, 2014). "15 of the Best Music Forums on the Web". Pigeons and Planes. Complex Media, Inc. Archived from the original on August 17, 2016. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  2. ^ a b Douglas, Nick (April 4, 2018). "How to Find New Music You'll Actually Like". Lifehacker. Univision Communications. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  3. ^ Mahalo.com staff. "Rateyourmusic.com". Mahalo.com. mahalo.com. Archived from the original on December 16, 2013. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  4. ^ Madden, Mike (March 15, 2014). "Meet Tymeshifter, the Incredibly Prolific Rate Your Music User". Noisey. Vice Media. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  5. ^ Tannenbaum, Rob (July 2, 2015). "Your La Monte Young Listening Guide". Vulture. New York Media LLC. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  6. ^ Vieira, Rafael (June 30, 2015). "Rate Your Music: os melhores discos de todos os tempos". Whiplash.Net (in Portuguese). Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  7. ^ "Rate Your Music: Welcome!". Rate Your Music. February 1, 2023. Retrieved February 1, 2023.
  8. ^ "Have A Nice Life Aren't Joking". Kerrang!. March 22, 2019. Retrieved October 31, 2022.
  9. ^ Coney, Brian (August 27, 2018). "The Slow Return of Duster, the Lo-Fi Trio Who Secretly Changed Indie Rock". Noisey. Vice Media. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  10. ^ Richardson, Mark (February 22, 2019). "Back to the Stratosphere: How the Rarest Music in the World Comes Back". The Ringer. Retrieved August 29, 2024.
  11. ^ Gui, James (March 28, 2024). "Parannoul and the New Generation of Korean Indie". Pitchfork. Retrieved October 12, 2024.
  12. ^ He, Kristen S. (March 20, 2024). "The Resurrection And Rewriting Of Shoegaze History". Junkee. Retrieved October 12, 2024.
  13. ^ "Chat Pile: The Success No One Was Expecting". Bandcamp Daily. September 9, 2022. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  14. ^ Angelo, Maurício (December 18, 2015). "Rate Your Music: crowdfunding para a nova versão "Sonemic"". M.O.V.I.N [UP] (in Portuguese). revistamovinup.com. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  15. ^ Hypebot staff (February 20, 2015). "8 Different Ways To Discover Music In 2015". Hypebot. hypebot.com. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  16. ^ Baoi, Andy (December 14, 2011). "Spotify vs. Rdio: Who Has The Exclusives?". Wired. Condé Nast. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  17. ^ Veselý, Karel (December 8, 2015). "Kultovní hudební databáze Discogs a Rate Your Music kráčí vstříc mobilní budoucnosti". Radio Wave. Czech Radio. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  18. ^ Flashmode Arabia staff (November 26, 2018). "RateYourMusic Case Study: an Examination of RYM's UX Flaws". Flashmode Arabia. ar.flashmode.tn. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  19. ^ Barau, Deeparghya Dutta (December 13, 2018). "Discovering music". The Daily Star. Transcom Group. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  20. ^ Newonce staff (August 8, 2018). "8 serwisów społecznościowych, na których kiedyś traciliśmy czas". Newonce (in Polish). newonce.net. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  21. ^ Voon, Claire (October 9, 2017). "A Mixtape for Every Year of the History of Recorded Sound". Hyperallergic. Hyperallergic Media Inc. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  22. ^ Buskirk, Eliot Van (May 8, 2013). "How To Collect Music in These Overwhelming Times". Evolver.fm. The Echo Nest. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  23. ^ Harrison, A Noah (October 2, 2015). "Vaporwave Ambassador-Turned-Future Funk Heartthrob Talks about Change: A Chat with Skylar Spence". PopMatters. popmatters.com. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  24. ^ Bernstein, Scott (October 17, 2013). "Phish Halloween Preview". JamBase. JamBase Inc. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  25. ^ The Quietus staff (August 22, 2014). "Aphex Twin: Quietus Writers Select Their Deep Cuts". The Quietus. thequietus.com. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  26. ^ Moore, Doug (December 12, 2017). "The Best Metal Albums Of 2017". Stereogum. Valence Media. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  27. ^ Patrin, Nate (January 25, 2018). "Remembering And Rediscovering Mark E. Smith And The Fall – Stereogum". Stereogum. Valence Media. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  28. ^ Ghosh, Sayan (February 18, 2018). "Sayan Ghosh: Fishman's '98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare'". The Michigan Daily. University of Michigan. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  29. ^ Chainey, Ian (February 28, 2018). "The Black Market: The Month In Metal – February 2018". Stereogum. Valence Media. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  30. ^ Fosl, Lijah (August 8, 2018). "Jason Lescalleet's Glistening Examples label drops three new glistening albums: listen now". Tiny Mix Tapes. tinymixtapes.com. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  31. ^ Ok, Katherine (October 8, 2018). "Yves Tumor releases Warp Records debut". The Brown Daily Herald. The Brown Daily Herald, Inc. Retrieved April 18, 2019.
  32. ^ Krol, Charlotte (February 2, 2023). "Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp A Butterfly' overtakes Radiohead's 'OK Computer' as top rated album on Rate Your Music". NME. Retrieved August 29, 2024.
  33. ^ "To Pimp a Butterfly Surpasses OK Computer as Top Album on Rate Your Music". February 1, 2023. Retrieved August 29, 2024.
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