Other Music Sites?
Dear Hilbert,
What are some other useful and intelligent websites and resources for possessed music nerds like me? P.S. My toaster oven is broken.
Sincerely,
Ashley Feeblenipples
Episode Two: The Pitchfork Strikes Back!
Well, Ashley, I'm glad you asked! I've decided to devote this post to englightening you about some other important wesbites in today's world devoted to the reviewing and discussing of mind-melting music tunage. Naturally, scientists find that there is none that compares to Music News, Views, Reviews & Hues, but here I present to you a brief list of music sites that I feel every pathetic music fan deserves to familiarize him/herself with:
http://www.allmusic.com/ Well, duh, homeboy! Allmusic is widely regarded as the most complete and trustworthy music encyclopedia and review-source on the Interweb, and with good reason. The database is immense, with reviews on just about any somewhat-established act, dedicated to pointing a new listener in the right direction with their trademark symbols. What I find most impressive is the reviewers' ability to remain completely objective in their reviews, basing their write-ups on what the artist is, rather than any pretentious ideal on what the artist "should be". For example, here's a review of Kenny G's "Silhouette":
Kenny G was at the top his form with Silhouette, the follow-up to his breakthrough Duotones, turning in a set of smooth, melodic sax that cemented his position as America's favorite pop instrumentalist.
Notice how the kind reviewer didn't mention the fact that Kenny G is a poodle-haired dingleberry with the musical worthiness of my left nut! Allmusic seems designed to appeal to listeners with even the crappiest of tastes. Of course, some times the scores don't seem to fit the review at all, other times it seems like they're way to hesitant to give the full 5-star treatment to newer releases, while going all the way to homeplate with older, jazz stuff at the drop of a hat. The older reviews sometimes consist of a sentenec or two (see above), whereas newer, mainstream reviews are longer than a squirrel-hat sandwich. Nonetheless, there isn't a more professional or objective music review site on the web.
http://www.markprindle.com/ Alright, now if Allmusic is the most objective and professional site for music reviews, my fellow New Yorker Mark Prindle is way, way at the opposite side of the spectrum. He's been maintaining a personal record review site since 1996, writing often inane record reviews that are at once informative and utterly moronic/hilarious! For example, consider this excerpt from a review of Aerosmith's most recent crapfest, "Honkin` on Bobo":
You know what I just realized? Apparently nobody has reserved the URL "www.aflkdjafkdsjafkldsjaf;kldjfakldfja;dfjajadslflsadf.com." No, seriously! I checked and got this crazy note back from my browser saying "We can't find 'www.aflkdjafkdsjafkldsjaf;kldjfakldfja;dfjajadslflsadf.com' You can try again by typing the URL in the address bar above. Or, search the Web." And then it says, "Check availability or register the domain name 'www.aflkdjafkdsjafkldsjaf;kldjfakldfja;dfjajadslflsadf.com'." I mean, that's totally fucked up. What kind of an asshole do I look like sitting here stuck in a year-long subscription to www.mrakprindel.com or whatever the hell it is I can never remember, when I could be sitting pretty and watching the visitors roll right in at www.aflkdjafkdsjafkldsjaf;kldjfakldfja;dfjajadslflsadf.com? Goddamn it. Goddamn everything. Nothing will ever be good again.
Or, here we have Mark's touching imitation of Eminem's crapfest, "Encore":
Everybody misunderstands me, and I grew up without a father. You know I love you Hayley, you're my world. But your mother, who contributed half of your DNA, is a fucking bitch!!!! But the reason I feel that way is because I grew up without a father. Fuck shit asshole you suck! (*fart noise*) Fag joke! (*belch noise*) The war is wrong, and if I get killed now, you know why it happened? It's because I had the BALLS, the GUTS to be the ONE person in entertainment to speak out against the war! (*vomit noise*) Here are some Michael Jackson jokes I heard ten years ago. "Boy -- oops! I mean "girl"! HA HA! (*belch noise*) I'm so angry at that guy who does that insult dog puppet character. I think I'll make fun of that guy, but without being funny at all, because somewhere along the line I completely lost my sense of humor. "I keed! I keed!" And the rest of this song makes NO SENSE AT ALL! (*vomit noise*) Look how crazy and wacky I am! I'm crazy! My weenie is bigger than yours! To say that, I must be CrAzY! (*belch noise through an effects processor*) I never meant to make anybody die. I grew up without a father! I was white, and black people didn't like me. Don't you feel sorry for me and my sad youth? Here, let me talk about fucking some girl. Also, let me take care to not make a single fucking one of these songs danceable. Yeah! I'll fill them all with slow clunky beats and simplistic synth "riffs" that sound like Dr. Dre b-sides from the early '90s! Also, I totally and completely suck now!
Mr. Prindle is also blessed with impeccable taste in music, which he rates on a fair 1-10 red circle system, with only one album per artist recieving the full ten yards. His site is vivaciously filled with annual surveys, regular interviews, and Wacky Weekly WPhotos! Anyway, I recently came to the conclusion that he is my favorite music critic to ever walk our glorious nation of Earth. God help me.
His Rush reviews aren't really that bad. See his desert island album choices!
http://www.metacritic.com/ This site seems to be for the ever-calculating robot in all of us, or maybe for those who are tired of wading through faux-profound Pitchfork reviews that describe albums like:
"...an expression of lovesick guilt that perpetually crescendos until the track unexpectedly explodes into a dance section, still soaked in the melodrama of weeping strings; the song's psychological despair gives way to a purely physical catharsis. The anthemic momentum of "Rebellion (Lies)" counterbalances Butler's plaintive appeal for survival at death's door, and there is liberation in his admittance of life's inevitable transience. "In the Backseat" explores a common phenomenon-- a love of backseat window-gazing, inextricably linked to an intense fear of driving-- that ultimately suggests a conclusive optimism through ongoing self-examination. "I've been learning to drive my whole life," Chassagne sings, as the album's acoustic majesty finally recedes and relinquishes..."
Basically, Metacritic is here to compile reviews from just about every major review site on the web, complete with excerpts, score averages, user comments, music boards, and annual listings of the best-scoring albums of the year. While some of these silly review sites should be taken with a grain of pepper, it's still useful as a tool (hehe, Beavis) for aspiring music afficianados.
http://rateyourmusic.com/? Alright, so basically think of Rate Your Music as Amazon customer reviews, except with reviewers with IQ's slightly higher than that of a door knob. Viewers like you! submit their own reviews and scores, and, like Metacritic, the site dutifully calculates averages (imagine the poor guy with that job!) and lists top albums by year, decade, century, millisecond... The only downside here is that the site is slower than a tortoise in a consistent vegetative state.
http://www.capnmusic.org/ Like Prindle's site, this is a private music-reviewing site run by another music connoiseur. Unlike Prindle's site, Capn Marvel assigns points on a letter grade scale, has a bit of a tilt towards classic rock, organizes the site by genre, lives in Russia and hasn't updated the site since December. Certainly worth a surfin`, nonetheless.
Know of any other music-reviewing sites that don't reek of patchouli-stink? Send me a telegram!
Fin.
What are some other useful and intelligent websites and resources for possessed music nerds like me? P.S. My toaster oven is broken.
Sincerely,
Ashley Feeblenipples
Episode Two: The Pitchfork Strikes Back!
Well, Ashley, I'm glad you asked! I've decided to devote this post to englightening you about some other important wesbites in today's world devoted to the reviewing and discussing of mind-melting music tunage. Naturally, scientists find that there is none that compares to Music News, Views, Reviews & Hues, but here I present to you a brief list of music sites that I feel every pathetic music fan deserves to familiarize him/herself with:
http://www.allmusic.com/ Well, duh, homeboy! Allmusic is widely regarded as the most complete and trustworthy music encyclopedia and review-source on the Interweb, and with good reason. The database is immense, with reviews on just about any somewhat-established act, dedicated to pointing a new listener in the right direction with their trademark symbols. What I find most impressive is the reviewers' ability to remain completely objective in their reviews, basing their write-ups on what the artist is, rather than any pretentious ideal on what the artist "should be". For example, here's a review of Kenny G's "Silhouette":
Kenny G was at the top his form with Silhouette, the follow-up to his breakthrough Duotones, turning in a set of smooth, melodic sax that cemented his position as America's favorite pop instrumentalist.
Notice how the kind reviewer didn't mention the fact that Kenny G is a poodle-haired dingleberry with the musical worthiness of my left nut! Allmusic seems designed to appeal to listeners with even the crappiest of tastes. Of course, some times the scores don't seem to fit the review at all, other times it seems like they're way to hesitant to give the full 5-star treatment to newer releases, while going all the way to homeplate with older, jazz stuff at the drop of a hat. The older reviews sometimes consist of a sentenec or two (see above), whereas newer, mainstream reviews are longer than a squirrel-hat sandwich. Nonetheless, there isn't a more professional or objective music review site on the web.
http://www.markprindle.com/ Alright, now if Allmusic is the most objective and professional site for music reviews, my fellow New Yorker Mark Prindle is way, way at the opposite side of the spectrum. He's been maintaining a personal record review site since 1996, writing often inane record reviews that are at once informative and utterly moronic/hilarious! For example, consider this excerpt from a review of Aerosmith's most recent crapfest, "Honkin` on Bobo":
You know what I just realized? Apparently nobody has reserved the URL "www.aflkdjafkdsjafkldsjaf;kldjfakldfja;dfjajadslflsadf.com." No, seriously! I checked and got this crazy note back from my browser saying "We can't find 'www.aflkdjafkdsjafkldsjaf;kldjfakldfja;dfjajadslflsadf.com' You can try again by typing the URL in the address bar above. Or, search the Web." And then it says, "Check availability or register the domain name 'www.aflkdjafkdsjafkldsjaf;kldjfakldfja;dfjajadslflsadf.com'." I mean, that's totally fucked up. What kind of an asshole do I look like sitting here stuck in a year-long subscription to www.mrakprindel.com or whatever the hell it is I can never remember, when I could be sitting pretty and watching the visitors roll right in at www.aflkdjafkdsjafkldsjaf;kldjfakldfja;dfjajadslflsadf.com? Goddamn it. Goddamn everything. Nothing will ever be good again.
Or, here we have Mark's touching imitation of Eminem's crapfest, "Encore":
Everybody misunderstands me, and I grew up without a father. You know I love you Hayley, you're my world. But your mother, who contributed half of your DNA, is a fucking bitch!!!! But the reason I feel that way is because I grew up without a father. Fuck shit asshole you suck! (*fart noise*) Fag joke! (*belch noise*) The war is wrong, and if I get killed now, you know why it happened? It's because I had the BALLS, the GUTS to be the ONE person in entertainment to speak out against the war! (*vomit noise*) Here are some Michael Jackson jokes I heard ten years ago. "Boy -- oops! I mean "girl"! HA HA! (*belch noise*) I'm so angry at that guy who does that insult dog puppet character. I think I'll make fun of that guy, but without being funny at all, because somewhere along the line I completely lost my sense of humor. "I keed! I keed!" And the rest of this song makes NO SENSE AT ALL! (*vomit noise*) Look how crazy and wacky I am! I'm crazy! My weenie is bigger than yours! To say that, I must be CrAzY! (*belch noise through an effects processor*) I never meant to make anybody die. I grew up without a father! I was white, and black people didn't like me. Don't you feel sorry for me and my sad youth? Here, let me talk about fucking some girl. Also, let me take care to not make a single fucking one of these songs danceable. Yeah! I'll fill them all with slow clunky beats and simplistic synth "riffs" that sound like Dr. Dre b-sides from the early '90s! Also, I totally and completely suck now!
Mr. Prindle is also blessed with impeccable taste in music, which he rates on a fair 1-10 red circle system, with only one album per artist recieving the full ten yards. His site is vivaciously filled with annual surveys, regular interviews, and Wacky Weekly WPhotos! Anyway, I recently came to the conclusion that he is my favorite music critic to ever walk our glorious nation of Earth. God help me.
His Rush reviews aren't really that bad. See his desert island album choices!
http://www.metacritic.com/ This site seems to be for the ever-calculating robot in all of us, or maybe for those who are tired of wading through faux-profound Pitchfork reviews that describe albums like:
"...an expression of lovesick guilt that perpetually crescendos until the track unexpectedly explodes into a dance section, still soaked in the melodrama of weeping strings; the song's psychological despair gives way to a purely physical catharsis. The anthemic momentum of "Rebellion (Lies)" counterbalances Butler's plaintive appeal for survival at death's door, and there is liberation in his admittance of life's inevitable transience. "In the Backseat" explores a common phenomenon-- a love of backseat window-gazing, inextricably linked to an intense fear of driving-- that ultimately suggests a conclusive optimism through ongoing self-examination. "I've been learning to drive my whole life," Chassagne sings, as the album's acoustic majesty finally recedes and relinquishes..."
Basically, Metacritic is here to compile reviews from just about every major review site on the web, complete with excerpts, score averages, user comments, music boards, and annual listings of the best-scoring albums of the year. While some of these silly review sites should be taken with a grain of pepper, it's still useful as a tool (hehe, Beavis) for aspiring music afficianados.
http://rateyourmusic.com/? Alright, so basically think of Rate Your Music as Amazon customer reviews, except with reviewers with IQ's slightly higher than that of a door knob. Viewers like you! submit their own reviews and scores, and, like Metacritic, the site dutifully calculates averages (imagine the poor guy with that job!) and lists top albums by year, decade, century, millisecond... The only downside here is that the site is slower than a tortoise in a consistent vegetative state.
http://www.capnmusic.org/ Like Prindle's site, this is a private music-reviewing site run by another music connoiseur. Unlike Prindle's site, Capn Marvel assigns points on a letter grade scale, has a bit of a tilt towards classic rock, organizes the site by genre, lives in Russia and hasn't updated the site since December. Certainly worth a surfin`, nonetheless.
Know of any other music-reviewing sites that don't reek of patchouli-stink? Send me a telegram!
Fin.
Labels: Allmusic, Capn' Marvel, Mark Prindle, Metacritic, Rateyourmusic
