I haven’t blogged to critique music in quite awhile. I mean sure, I’ve posted about some interesting distribution strategies, but I haven’t really talked about what I’ve been listening to.
There’s a number of reasons for this, but the main one is probably a lack of spare time lately. It’s rare I get the chance to sit down and write a comprehensive review of something, particularly since most of the new music I listen to these days is in transit, at the gym, or at work – not exactly spots where I’d want to start detailing what I thought even if I could. [Note: Since I've recently signed up to twitter, this may change.]
The other reason is timing - quite often by the time I really get around to writing about something, it’s already been out for awhile so it’s not exactly newsworthy - for example, when I finally got around to checking out the new Beck album (which I was hooked on for a week) it had already been out for a few weeks. So if you read album reviews, you probably already know it’s pretty awesome - so why post about it?
More and more lately, I’ve simply forgotten what I think about something. This is particularly problematic with things I listen to once and then archive away to label/sort at a later date…which I don’t end up really getting around to doing. This has become more apparent as this archive has piled up over the years – I’m to the point now where I’ll see a hip band’s sophomore record and then be at a loss of what I actually thought of their debut. A quick check normally tells me if I kept it or not, but if I’m fairly certain I’ve downloaded it and my search comes up empty, I find myself at a loss. And if I’ve kept it, did I love it or just like it just enough? Constantly trying to seek out new music comes with a downside: it can be difficult to revisit things as frequently as I would like.
So, it’s with this in mind that I’ve started using ratings. I’ve tried a few different things which I’ve spoken about in the past, but one site in particular warrants a closer look – Rateyourmusic.
Rateyourmusic is what amazon and metacritic could be if they were organized as well as allmusic’s database. [My ideal music site would be a mix of all of the above with last.fm/imeem streaming support, but that's probably another entry for another day.] Anyway, what you have here is a community-driven ratings system where users can also post written reviews, track their collections, get recommendations, etc.
For the music nerd, RYM's database is where it really shines. A quick look at an artist page will show you which of their releases you’ve rated and how your scores compare to the community average.
Click on an album, and you’ll see a much ‘smarter’ option as you can then view a specific issue of the release. For example, if you’ve got the limited/deluxe version of the new Soulfly record and you rate it on Amazon, it’ll probably at some point recommend the standard release of it to you because it sees them as two different things that appeal to the same consumer – and it may even do the same with international releases, etc. By keeping all issues on a single page, RYM avoids that sort of clutter and confusion. The artist pages also connect related acts, collaborations and side projects; which can be handy if you’re trying to figure out how many people Hans Zimmer has worked on scores with (a lot).
RYM also allows you to tag your collection, which I personally think will come in handy as I’m normally selecting music with a purpose in mind – going to the gym, reading/working background music, 'party' tunes to throw on when people are over, etc. This saves quite a bit of time if you’re trying to figure out what to put on the mp3 player before heading out to the gym, for example. A quick look at my items tagged ‘workout’ will give me a pretty good list of things (it would be even better if I could then sort this tag by rating, but I digress).
I understand RYM also recently started offering Facebook compatibility, but I haven’t played with it too much - my accounts are linked but that's about it. I do know you can log in from your FB page and display various things in your profile (recent ratings, owned records, etc.). They also allow you to export your ratings, but I haven’t seen what they’re compatible with – any media player would be a bonus, as editing ID3 tags just to add ratings is a pain.
Now, I initially kept my registration with RYM somewhat private, assuming most people wouldn’t really care – but every time someone asks me what I’ve been listening to lately (normally looking for something new to check out) I keep staring at them blankly while I try and think of something I’ve heard recently that’s worth passing on. If I'm online, I usually just look at my most recent ratings and go from there. Hopefully, his form of memory retention will also help me remember if I should be checking out whatever hipster flavour-of-the-week is putting out their follow-up album in coming weeks.
My use of RYM may also have an impact on this very blog - I'm considering integrating ratings into the page feed somewhere in the near future, similar to what I've done with Google Reader, but I have some other things I mind for the blog layout that I’d like to finish first. Either way, I wouldn’t expect too many more posts rambling about music in the near future...though if I come across something truly noteworthy I'll likely renege on this.
But next post I'll be tackling a different question: how can you stay on top of new tunes in an era where there’s few different radio stations and no music videos on TV? I’m hoping to provide a toolkit based on what I’ve read about recently, and what I actually use on a regular basis.
