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[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
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).[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
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]
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
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
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]
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]
