| Rate Your Music | |
| Logo Alt: | 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. |
| Commercial: | Yes |
| Type: | Social cataloging and community |
| Registration: | Optional and free (required to view and post threads on forums) |
| Language: | English (main site) Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish (forums) |
| Launch Date: | December 24, 2000 |
| Current Status: | Active |
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.
The first version of the site, "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]
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 mix and bootlegs to the database and to rate them. The rating system uses a scale of minimum a half-star (or 0.5 points) to maximum 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.
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.[7]
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 .[8] 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.[9]
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".[10] 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".[11] Wireds Andy Baio deemed it "quirky".[12] Radio Waves Karel Veselý praised Rate Your Music and Discogs as "[t]he cult music portals".[13]
Flashmode Arabia staff commended RYM as "a fantastic way to discover new music" but critiqued its user experience.[14] The Daily Stars Deeparghya Dutta Barau called it "one of those hip sites that offer functionality over aesthetics".[15] Similarly, Newonces 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".[16]
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.[17] Pigeons and Planess 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". Evolver.fms Eliot Van Buskirk advised readers to "Keep a wishlist on rateyourmusic.com".[18]
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".[19]
In an article previewing an upcoming Phish Halloween concert, in which the band traditionally covers an album in its entirety, JamBases Scott Bernstein noted that all but Waiting for Columbus "[were] in the top 700 on RateYourMusic, which compiles fan ratings".[20]
Selecting "Logan Rock Witch" from Richard D. James Album as their favorite Aphex Twin track, The Quietuss 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.)"[21]
Appraising Kairon; IRSE!'s album Ruination, Stereogums 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".[22]
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".[23]
Covering the Japanese band Fishmans album 98.12.28 Otokotachi no Wakare, The Michigan Dailys Sayan Ghosh noted the "classic music lover’s past-time of perusing through internet boards such as Rate Your Music".[24]
In response to Swedish symphonic metal band Therion's album Beloved Antichrist, Stereogums Ian Chainey opined that "extremely fickle user bases of Rate Your Music, Encyclopaedia Metallum, and Prog Archives all rate Therion’s albums highly".[25]
Commenting on the release of Retribution Body's album Self Destruction, Tiny Mix Tapess Lijah Fosl offered "a reminder that 'dark ambient' is more than just a random rateyourmusic.com categorization".[26]
In a retrospective on the American rock band Duster, Noiseys Brian Coney described their discography as "a muted legacy of life-changingly Good Music that has rewarded bummed-out indieheads with a penchant for Soulseek and RateYourMusic genre lists in the intervening 17 years".[27]
In a review for American musician Yves Tumor's album Safe in the Hands of Love, The Brown Daily Heralds Katherine Ok associated plunderphonics with "crate-digging, list-obsessed 'Rate Your Music' users".[28]