version

Well-known member
Nobody really cares about RA anymore aside from their event listings and ticket service but this debate on grading music seems to have been going back and forth for years. I know Pitchfork, Tiny Mix Tapes and a few others do them but it's always come off as a bit reductive and arbitrary anyway, imo. What does a 7.0 sound like in comparison to a 7.3?
 

chava

Well-known member
Nobody really cares about RA anymore aside from their event listings and ticket service but this debate on grading music seems to have been going back and forth for years. I know Pitchfork, Tiny Mix Tapes and a few others do them but it's always come off as a bit reductive and arbitrary anyway, imo. What does a 7.0 sound like in comparison to a 7.3?

I remember my old favorite techno mag Frontpage always gave 5/6 or 6/6 stars to each and every record unless it was trance (they pretty quickly stopped receiving trance promos).

Once in a while a record came by who of course was so good they had to break the scale and gave 7 out of 6 stars.

But yeah RA rendered themselves irrelevant when they closed the comments section.
 

version

Well-known member
But yeah RA rendered themselves irrelevant when they closed the comments section.

It's amazing how it instantly sucked the life out of the whole site. It's not even as though they got that many comments.
 

chava

Well-known member
It's amazing how it instantly sucked the life out of the whole site. It's not even as though they got that many comments.

I just followed the edgelord commenter types, proangelwings and whatever their names were. Hilarious and often to the point. Most music "journalism" (esp reviews) are so polite or vapid nowadays that it is almost impossible to read. RA was particularily bad in this regard and combined with their PC-ness it was pretty obvious that the comment section was where the gold was to be found.

There are good music journalists out there, though but there not much going for this field financially anymore. Maybe someone does reviews on Youtube and cashes in, I dunno.
 

version

Well-known member
DJ DAVID GOBLIN launches 40 minutes of rabid new beat / gabber war-dance over the battlements and into your disc-drive.

Freeform Gandalf-bash is back on the menu with this boiling cauldron of nosebleed, Mordor-via-Rotterdam hard step and mead slosh'd euro synth-wave, all brought together in the hysterical GENIUS of the ‘Gobs buzz saw guitar and overdubbed Ork grunt.

This grubby wee CD is essential for all the realm dwellers but if you already get down to the likes of Kotzaak / that Popcorn album on Ultra Eczema / LOTR directors cutz or The South Yorkshire Mick Hucknall, then THIS will really awaken your inner goblin. ORK POWER!
 

chava

Well-known member
DJ DAVID GOBLIN launches 40 minutes of rabid new beat / gabber war-dance over the battlements and into your disc-drive.

Freeform Gandalf-bash is back on the menu with this boiling cauldron of nosebleed, Mordor-via-Rotterdam hard step and mead slosh'd euro synth-wave, all brought together in the hysterical GENIUS of the ‘Gobs buzz saw guitar and overdubbed Ork grunt.

This grubby wee CD is essential for all the realm dwellers but if you already get down to the likes of Kotzaak / that Popcorn album on Ultra Eczema / LOTR directors cutz or The South Yorkshire Mick Hucknall, then THIS will really awaken your inner goblin. ORK POWER!

Yeah, that's more like it. I'd rather have this or Boomkats over-the-top blurbs of inane experimentronics than RA blandness.
 

firefinga

Well-known member
I remember my old favorite techno mag Frontpage always gave 5/6 or 6/6 stars to each and every record unless it was trance (they pretty quickly stopped receiving trance promos).

Once in a while a record came by who of course was so good they had to break the scale and gave 7 out of 6 stars.

But yeah RA rendered themselves irrelevant when they closed the comments section.

Yes but Frontpage and later on De:Bug (which kinda was its offspring) only reviewed stuff they liked anyways.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Nobody really cares about RA anymore aside from their event listings and ticket service but this debate on grading music seems to have been going back and forth for years. I know Pitchfork, Tiny Mix Tapes and a few others do them but it's always come off as a bit reductive and arbitrary anyway, imo. What does a 7.0 sound like in comparison to a 7.3?

I'm waiting for them to follow The Wire's example and also remove any high-level description of what the music actually sounds like as well.
 
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