Rate Your Music
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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
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<ref name="Black 2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Douglas 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and add artists and releases to the database.
In May 2009, Rate Your Music started to add films to its database.<ref name="Mahalo.com staff 2019">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Features
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, music videos, 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).<ref name="Madden 2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Users can likewise leave reviews for RYM entries as well as create user profiles.<ref name="Tannenbaum 2015">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Vieira 2015">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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
Template:As of, RYM had over 819,000 user-created lists ranging from "popular lists" to "ultimate box sets," which cover various musical genres, including obscure micro-genres.<ref name="Douglas 2018" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Template:As of, the site had over 1.3 million users registered, with over 6.6 million releases added and 147 million ratings.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Impact
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<ref name=":2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Duster's 1998 album Stratosphere.<ref name="Richardson-2019">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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.<ref name="Coney 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Richardson-2019" /> 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 temporarily topped the website's album chart for the year.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2023, JPEGMafia and Danny Brown released the collaborative album Scaring the Hoes. Later that year, an official promotional merch site included a T-shirt featuring the album's Rate Your Music page.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Reception
Rate Your Music has been received generally favorably. M.O.V.I.N [UP]Template:'s Maurício Angelo praised RYM as "the best guide to discovering new music, in all styles, of any tempo".<ref name="Angelo 2019">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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".<ref name="Hypebot staff 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> WiredTemplate:'s Andy Baio deemed it "quirky".<ref name="Baio 2011">Template:Cite magazine</ref> Radio WaveTemplate:'s Karel Veselý praised Rate Your Music and Discogs as "[t]he cult music portals".<ref name="Veselý 2015">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Flashmode Arabia staff commended RYM as "a fantastic way to discover new music" but critiqued its user experience.<ref name="Flashmode Arabia staff 2019">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> The Daily StarTemplate:'s Deeparghya Dutta Barau called it "one of those hip sites that offer functionality over aesthetics".<ref name="Barau 2019">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> 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".<ref name="Newonce staff 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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.<ref name="Voon 2017">Template:Cite news</ref> Pigeons and PlanesTemplate:'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".<ref name="Black 2014" /> Evolver.fmTemplate:'s Eliot Van Buskirk advised readers to "Keep a wishlist on rateyourmusic.com".<ref name="Buskirk 2013">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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".<ref name="Harrison 2015">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Other references
In an article previewing an upcoming Phish Halloween concert, in which the band traditionally covers an album in its entirety, JamBaseTemplate:'s Scott Bernstein noted that all but Waiting for Columbus "[were] in the top 700 on RateYourMusic, which compiles fan ratings".<ref name="Bernstein">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Selecting "Logan Rock Witch" from Richard D. James Album as their favorite Aphex Twin track, The QuietusTemplate:'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.)"<ref name="The Quietus staff 2014">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Appraising Kairon; IRSE!'s album Ruination, StereogumTemplate:'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".<ref name="Moore 2017">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In a piece concerning Mark E. Smith, Nate Patrin of Stereogum 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".<ref name="Patrin 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Covering the Japanese band Fishmans album 98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare, The Michigan DailyTemplate:'s Sayan Ghosh noted the "classic music lover’s past-time of perusing through internet boards such as Rate Your Music".<ref name="Ghosh 2018-2">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In response to Swedish symphonic metal band Therion's album Beloved Antichrist, StereogumTemplate:'s Ian Chainey opined that "extremely fickle user bases of Rate Your Music, Encyclopaedia Metallum, and Prog Archives all rate Therion’s albums highly".<ref name="Chainey 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Commenting on the release of Retribution Body's album Self Destruction, Tiny Mix TapesTemplate:'s Lijah Fosl offered "a reminder that 'dark ambient' is more than just a random rateyourmusic.com categorization".<ref name="Fosl 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In a review for American musician Yves Tumor's album Safe in the Hands of Love, The Brown Daily HeraldTemplate:'s Katherine Ok associated plunderphonics with "crate-digging, list-obsessed 'Rate Your Music' users".<ref name="Ok 2018">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
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.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>