quote:

Originally posted by brighteyes215:
He does seem to insinuate that simple fun can be bad: "The more I take music "too seriously," the more I find myself yearning for something that facilitates new ways of thinking, new approaches, new anything."
Okay fair enough, but if the music isn't trying for that, what do you do? Does that make the music bad, No. It doesn't make the music anything except maybe a bit unoriginal.

I tend to equate unoriginal with bad.

Modern Music
http://buluthim.blogspot.com/
Quite different good reviews which i follow daily and regularly.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Koolguy,

Has anyone heard of the Piero Scaruffi music review website, at Scaruffi.com, and if so, what do you think of it? I just read a lengthy NYT article about it. On the one hand, the site seems to have a lot going for it. The reviews are mercifully short and well-written. Scaruffi seems very knowledgeable about jazz and classical, as well as rock. And he’s independent-minded, as he’s happy to tell you himself on the site:


1. ... it provides truly independent opinions, and from a historical perspective. I am a historian and critic (I teach history of knowledge). I do not promote all recordings as masterpieces. As a matter of fact, I am aware that the vast majority of recordings are just about mediocre and very few deserve recognition (even fewer deserve your money). Musicians are often offended by my critiques and their publicists often complain, but that does not change the merits of their recordings, and therefore my assessment of those recordings.

2. ... it is not a trick to sell you CDs. I do not flood your screen with banners and all sorts of advertising. I know it is very annoying when you select a page and suddenly an ad pops up on your screen. My pages on music, cinema, etc have content (often a lot of content). Advertising is confined to a handful of pages.

3. ... it is written by someone who is relatively competent and unbiased. I have been writing for more than 30 years. I am the author of nine books on music (latest "A History of Rock Music", 2003). This website is not a fan site devoted to one or a few bands, but a comprehensive music database that already covers more than 6,000 musicians of all musical genres.

4. ... it does not provide catch phrases that music labels can use in their advertising (the vast majority of critics are more interested in getting free CDs from labels than telling their readers the truth, and the best way to get on a label's mailing list is to help publicists sell the label's CDs)

5. ... it is written by only one person (thus the very unimaginative domain name) so uniform criteria are applied to all recordings and musicians, whereas most online magazines are written by many reviewers (making it difficult to tell what one reviewer's "masterpiece" means for another reviewer)

On the other hand, he calls a lot of albums dear to my heart mediocre (or worse), e.g., Destroyer’s Rubies (6/10), Silent Shout (6/10), I Am Not Afraid Of You . . . (6/10), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (6/10), Twin Cinema (5.5/10), The Great Destroyer (6/10).

quote:

On the other hand, he calls a lot of albums dear to my heart mediocre (or worse), e.g., Destroyer’s Rubies (6/10), Silent Shout (6/10), I Am Not Afraid Of You . . . (6/10), Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (6/10), Twin Cinema (5.5/10), The Great Destroyer (6/10).

Everything from the 2000s scores in the 5–7 range. Very few are awarded higher, with 7.5 being the highest I came across.

quote:

Originally posted by m.leland:
Everything from the 2000s scores in the 5–7 range. Very few are awarded higher, with 7.5 being the highest I came across.

Well, not everything, but close. The highest score he's given in the 00s is an 8, to the following albums:

Dirty 3: Whatever You Love You Are (2000)
Roy Montgomery: The Allegory of Hearing (2000)
Lofty Pillars: Amsterdam (Truckstop)
Solex: Low Kick And Hard Bop (2001)
Spring Heel Jack: Disappeared (2000)
Toby Dammit: Top Dollar (2001)

I haven't heard any of them. But given what I now understand is Scaruffi's well-regarded reputation, maybe they're worth checking out. Has anyone heard any of the above albums?

I had no idea Scaruffi's site draws so much traffic. I originally started visiting because of his jazz reviews. I don't find his criticism particularly compelling, there's just so damn much of it that it's a good means of catching things that might have gotten past me otherwise. Tom Hull's site serves the same purpose.

Now Playing: "And the House Fell Down" Elton John The Captain and the Kid

I checked out Scaruffi's site, and it really didn't do anything for me. Although I sort of like the idea that he doesn't assign "classic" status to every new release that comes out, his criticisms are usually pretty dull. It sort of comes across as a AMG type of site, only without as many bells and whistles.

Who is Toby Dammit?

quote:

Originally posted by MusicEmissions.com:
Who is Toby Dammit?

I'm Gumby Dammit!!!

Whenever I go to Delusions of Adequacy, half the words on the page are all smudged and I can barely read them. Is it like this for anyone else? This has never happened to any other website for me, but it's been like this for a long time at DOA. What is up with that? It's annoying as hell.

quote:

Originally posted by RavingLunatic:
Whenever I go to Delusions of Adequacy, half the words on the page are all smudged and I can barely read them. Is it like this for anyone else? This has never happened to any other website for me, but it's been like this for a long time at DOA. What is up with that? It's annoying as hell.

I haven't noticed this phenomenon, nor have I heard anyone else mention it. Regardless,I will drop a line to my editor at the site, and see if they are having technical difficulties. Is that the only site that does that for you RL?

Yeah, it is. I actually already e-mailed somebody there and sent them a screenshot. She said she was gonna see if your programmer could fix it.

Cool. Hopefully, everything works out.

Anyone know of any really good review sites that cover... idk, good stuff. Haha.

I'm getting sick of p4k covering really niche stuff and givig it good reviews and then giving average reviews to good albums that aren't extremely weird and obscure.

I have always liked allmusic.com. They have a wealth of stuff on their site including great detailed reviews and a lot of good writers.

I like gorillavsbear.blogspot.com

Anyone ever check that one out?

quote:

gorillavsbear.blogspot.com

they don't review stuff there.

quote:

Whenever I go to Delusions of Adequacy, half the words on the page are all smudged and I can barely read them.

You probably smudged peanut butter or hand lotion all over the website. good job

quote:

Has anyone heard of the Piero Scaruffi music review website, at Scaruffi.com, and if so, what do you think of it?

Yes!! I've been trying to turn people over here on to him for some time now, but I haven't heard of anybody actually visiting it.

Before you go and get your panties in a bunch about the 'mediocre' numbers, here's his rating scheme:

Albums are rated on this website as follows:
10=best ever; 9=a masterpiece; 8=buy it now;
7=buy it eventually; 6=buy it if you are a fan

The upshot is that, in my experience, just about anything that gets a 7 or above from him is worth checking out.

If you look at his top 25 of all time (list found here), the decade breakdown goes as follows (I was doing this for the hell of it the other day):

1960s - 6 albums
1970s - 14 (!)
1980s - 2 (!?)
1990s - 5

(I just noticed 3 albums are tied for spot 25)

Another con is that many of the reviews are only in Italian. I've been wanting to try my hand at translating a couple for a while now, but haven't ever had enough time to sit down and work on it.

Even if you've already written off his reviews, I would recommend the best of lists - he has one for every decade, year and genre. They always have something you wouldn't expect.

He wrote a book, History Of Rock Music
and it is up in its entirety.

Not only that, he has a pretty extensive list of other online resources (and yes, metacritic is listed on there ). Link Here

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Vitun_Krapula,

His Best Hip Hop Albums are decent, I disagree with a couple listed and have numerous issues with the order, but I don't really have any place to complain seeing as how I couldn't even make a definitive list for the genre as of now due to my general inability to decide why group A is better than artist B. Overall, he seems knowledgable on music and has a lot of information on his site which I may refer back to later.