Rank these Album Review websites

[newbands1]

From best to worst.

Absolute Punk
All Music Guide
BBC Music
PopMatters
Rolling Stone
Spin
Sputnikmusic
The A.V. Club
The Guardian
Paste Magazine
Pitchfork

[Applerill]

1. Pitchfork (for all the obscure indie stuff)
2. Rolling Stone (for all the commercial pop stuff that's surprisingly good, and for classic rock revival stuff)

With those two, why do you need anything else? Other than BEA and RYM and Scaruffi, of course

[Yourselfisntsteam]

I rarely read any of these, I just use metacritic to get an idea of general critical consensus and after that I prefer to read random individual critics, because they tend to have more personality: Fast 'n Bulbous, Mark Prindle, Scaruffi, random users on rate your music with similar taste to mine....

[Facetious]

[M Hurley]

It's hard to rank publications as they usually have very diverse staff, and some of these have been around many years. It isn't fair to peg an entire publication as good or bad because they choose to run one person's review. Hell, even Rolling Stone gave Joanna Newsom's "Ys" two stars. Does that mean they suck? No, but the individual reviewer does. (Objectively)

[Le_Samurai]

Pitchfork- my favorite. Good for the obscure indie and their opinions are always interesting to read

Rolling Stone- I hate Rolling Stone's music reviews. Guys, you can't give everything 3 1/2 stars

Allmusic- the tend to be very positive, I see very few negative reviews, with most albums seemingly getting about like a 3 1/2 stars. it's good as an encyclopedia to look albums up

Popmatters- Good combination of the indie and mainstreem and the writing is great. My favorite article on the internet is their Counterbalance feature.

Sputnik- nice site,. I'm not a big fan of hardcore punk rock nor is my favorite type of music and they seem to give a lot of attention to that.

Not so familiar with the rest.

[Yourselfisntsteam]

[mooseboy101]

[mooseboy101]

I don't really follow review sites, I just stick to some of my favorite blogs and download whatever sounds interesting that they put on it.

http://teenshoegaze.blogspot.com/
http://holyfuckingshit40000.blogspot.com/
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[Jackwc]

It really comes down to:

Rolling Stone - Has not balls. No balls what-so-ever. Ever since that massive rage they received when they gave Let It Be a really shitty review back in '70, they've been scared shitless to post any kind of "extreme" review, meaning every single album they review is either a 3/5 or a 4/5, and they make sure to be rather vague about whether or not they thought it was really good or just okay so that if the album DOES turn out to be a success they can jump on the "we always knew it would be a classic" bandwagon. Also, pretty much all reissues get an automatic 5/5.

Pitchfork - Wants everyone to think they have balls. Craves attention and loves to be "edgy". Their "10.0" review scores allow them to really diversify their opinions a lot more than Rolling Stone does, but they use this to pretty much label almost anything that sold more than three copies as shit. They love to stir up shitstorms, and then shit on anyone who shits on them for their attention-whoring as they are just "telling it like it is". Half the time their reviews are incomprehensible, riddled with meaningless anecdotes that have nothing to do with what they're talking about. Like Rolling Stone, they give an assload of 10/10 scores to reissues, because we all know that if it's been out for a certain amount of time it automatically becomes better, because music ages like wine apparently.

Sputnik has been surprisingly trustworthy, I like them. Go read Sputnikmusic.
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