Rate Your Music

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 and add artists and releases to the database.

In May 2009, Rate Your Music started to add films to its database.

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). Users can likewise leave reviews for RYM entries as well as create user profiles. 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

, 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.

, the site had over 1.3 million users registered, with over 6.6 million releases added and 147 million ratings.

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 and Duster's 1998 album Stratosphere.

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. 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.

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.

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.

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". 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". Wireds Andy Baio deemed it "quirky". Radio Waves Karel Veselý praised Rate Your Music and Discogs as "[t]he cult music portals".

Flashmode Arabia staff commended RYM as "a fantastic way to discover new music" but critiqued its user experience. The Daily Stars Deeparghya Dutta Barau called it "one of those hip sites that offer functionality over aesthetics". 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".

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. 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".

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".

The website gained a decent amount of traction in February 2023 when similar 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.

References

References

1. (April 10, 2014). "15 of the Best Music Forums on the Web". [[Complex Networks (media).
2. (April 4, 2018). "How to Find New Music You'll Actually Like". [[Univision Communications]].
3. "Rateyourmusic.com".
4. (March 15, 2014). "Meet Tymeshifter, the Incredibly Prolific Rate Your Music User". [[Vice Media]].
5. (July 2, 2015). "Your La Monte Young Listening Guide". New York Media LLC.
6. (June 30, 2015). "Rate Your Music: os melhores discos de todos os tempos". Whiplash.Net.
7. "Rate Your Music - Welcome".
8. (1 March 2025). "Statistics of RYM".
9. (March 22, 2019). "Have A Nice Life Aren't Joking".
10. Richardson, Mark. (February 22, 2019). "Back to the Stratosphere: How the Rarest Music in the World Comes Back".
11. (August 27, 2018). "The Slow Return of Duster, the Lo-Fi Trio Who Secretly Changed Indie Rock". [[Vice Media]].
12. Gui, James. (2024-03-28). "Parannoul and the New Generation of Korean Indie".
13. He, Kristen S.. (2024-03-20). "The Resurrection And Rewriting Of Shoegaze History".
14. "SCARING THE HOES".
15. (September 9, 2022). "Chat Pile: The Success No One Was Expecting".
16. (December 18, 2015). "Rate Your Music: crowdfunding para a nova versão "Sonemic"". revistamovinup.com.
17. (February 20, 2015). "8 Different Ways To Discover Music In 2015".
18. (December 14, 2011). "Spotify vs. Rdio: Who Has The Exclusives?". [[Condé Nast]].
19. (December 8, 2015). "Kultovní hudební databáze Discogs a Rate Your Music kráčí vstříc mobilní budoucnosti". [[Czech Radio]].
20. (November 26, 2018). "RateYourMusic Case Study: an Examination of RYM's UX Flaws".
21. (December 13, 2018). "Discovering music". [[Transcom Group]].
22. (August 8, 2018). "8 serwisów społecznościowych, na których kiedyś traciliśmy czas".
23. (October 9, 2017). "A Mixtape for Every Year of the History of Recorded Sound". Hyperallergic Media Inc..
24. (May 8, 2013). "How To Collect Music in These Overwhelming Times". The Echo Nest.
25. (October 2, 2015). "Vaporwave Ambassador-Turned-Future Funk Heartthrob Talks about Change: A Chat with Skylar Spence". popmatters.com.
26. Krol, Charlotte. (2023-02-02). "Kendrick Lamar's 'To Pimp A Butterfly' overtakes Radiohead's 'OK Computer' as top rated album on Rate Your Music".
27. (2023-02-01). "To Pimp a Butterfly Surpasses OK Computer as Top Album on Rate Your Music".