Acclaimed Music Forums

Matski

... It's not even that I don't like ambient music. I like James Blake, Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, and Julia Holter. But whenever I hear something off "Ruins" my immediate reaction is...boredom. I'm open to indecipherable lyrics (I'm a huge My Bloody Valentine fan), and I'm open to simplicity ...

Matski

I gave the new Grouper album a listen. It made me want to fall asleep, and I don't mean that in a good way (can you even mean that in a good way??). It was pleasant enough music, but I really needed something to grab me for me to fully enjoy it, and it just didn't grab me at all. Good music for ind...

Matski

The Wedding Present - George Best = downgraded to 4.0 stars
The Wedding Present - Seamonsters = upgraded to 5.0 stars

Matski

Can't shake the feeling that this was mixed-up when they uploaded the review for FlyLo's newest album but..: Flying Lotus - Los Angeles = upgraded to 4.5 stars Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma = downgraded to 4.0 stars Bad Allmusic editorial team! Both deserve the minimum of a 4.5 star rating. :( @Rob - Y...

Matski

Not the biggest Kate Bush fan but I was pleasantly surprised by the diverse selection of musical artists that made a strong contribution to that documentary. It was much better than the usual selection of forgettable, yester-year celebrities that are normally brought in for these types of retrospect...

Matski

Opeth - Ghost Reveries - upgraded to 5.0 stars on AllMusic

Matski

This all seems amicable and clean so I wouldn't be surprised if they do a few more shows together somewhere further down the line. In the meantime, I don't think I'll ever get too bored of listening to Silent Shout or Shaking the Habitual.

Matski

I'm not too hung-up about 2014 album placements. While only Benji made the top twenty out this year's crop (and with Lost in the Dream nearly making it too), given more time for them to settle and make their mark, I'm sure they'll rise up future lists of a similar nature. It's all a bit silly anyway...

Matski

Pitchfork's Top 100 albums of the decade so far is now online.

Matski

Ugh, wish they hadn't included the chunky 'rotating' video at the top, or the giant ads in the middle. As for the singles, nice to see LCD, Beach House and Tame Impala with songs in the top twenty, though I wonder if the complete lack of PJ Harvey from the entire list is an omnious sign regarding he...

Matski

Many greetings Krurze!

Hasn't 'The Cold Vein' always (and rightfully) had a 4.5 star rating on Allmusic? I wouldn't be surprised if in their next reassessment of their hip-hop album ratings that AMG upgraded it to a full five stars.

Matski

I'd love to hear from someone who isn't American about their experiences with incredibly hyped American acts. I've seen several publications (AMG, Pitchfork) cite Pavement as the finest band of the 1990s, and Slanted & Enchanted is frequently ranked as a top 5 of that decade. Abroad they seem t...

Matski

Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One - upgraded to 5.0 stars on AllMusic

Matski

To be fair you've both hit upon an accurate criticism of AMG. The site may give off the pretense that it's a 'music guide' but really it's more of a comprehensive music database with a team of reviewers to provide their individual opinions on the entries.

Matski

digifuwill wrote:Their ratings, formerly the most reliable in my opinion, aren't as valuable now anyway. Lately they've been granting 5 stars to a lot of minor reviewers' personal favorites, and most of those are out of nowhere and far from worthy.

Which one's in particular?

Matski

As far as I'm aware, it doesn't. Unless you're an avid visitor with a good memory for their scores then the closest the public gets to finding info' on the changes to their ratings is by looking through an album's page history on Wikipedia.

Matski

Yeah, a lot of the downgrades look like an overcorrection to scores that went before. Most of them I'd knock back up half-a-star.

Matski

Nice catch digifuwill! Wow, it really seems like AllMusic brought the boot down on all those 4.5s they had given to the Drive-by Truckers . While they did give 'Southern Rock Opera' a full five star rating, they also down-rated many of their albums from 4.5 stars to more modest scores. AllMusic do t...

Matski

Matski

Good news for fans of The Who. Quadrophrenia has been upgraded to the full five star treatment by AMG!

The Who - Quadrophrenia = upgraded to 5 stars

Matski

Matski

Does it leave up to the hype?

Matski

Wanted to recommend the following to any experimental electronica aficionados. Ben Frost's new album, 'A U R O R A' has been getting plenty of listens from me over the last few days. You can find a live stream of the entire album here , on Pitchfork Advance. As for this week's rock music, I'm lookin...

Matski

Matski

I'm not sure how many of you follow The Needle Drop, but the man behind it (Anthony Fantano) just awarded the new Swans album his second perfect score he has ever given an album. Big deal. Another a fan of Fantano here. Not that I often agree with his scores but he has a concise and articulate styl...

Matski

Matski

Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion II = downgraded to 3.5 stars. Seems like the AllMusic staff can't make up their minds over what to do with this album - They've reverted it back to its original 4.5 score. Yet the review reads much closer to the 3.5 star rating that it had attained in the last few ...

Matski

There is a new AllMusic update for Fennesz, with his album Endless Summer going from 4.0 stars to 5.0 stars. It has also become their top album pick out of his entire oeuvre! It seems like reviewers François Couture and Fred Thomas have rewritten a couple of other reviews for Fennesz' 2000s albums (...

Matski

Bump my rating of Ambrose Akinmusire up to 91. I strongly encourage others to listen to this album too. It's a jazz album with some vocal songs and some instrumental songs, and absolutely entrancing. As just attested to on the 'Now Playing' topic, I'm mainly listening to jazz this weekend. Heard th...

Matski

With my Sunday afternoon fully free, I'm spending it listening to this in all its entirety. Marvellous!

Matski

27 out of 100.

Matski

Guess I'll give that Julia Holter a try. She's not from Brooklyn or England so she can't be THAT bad. But if it sounds anything like YS part 2 I'm shaking my fists at you guys. Hate to admit this and this is coming from a guy who LOVED female artists, but lately it's been mostly strike outs when it...

Matski

By 'best' I have taken that to mean rating them in order of personal preference. If you were asking us to list them all based on something else (consistency, volume of great albums, influence, etc) then it would look completely different: 1. The Velvet Underground 2. Radiohead 3. The Beatles 4. The ...

Matski

Enjoyed repeated listens of the new EMA record too. On par with her wonderful debut imo.

Matski

I'm now spinning Broken Boy Soldiers, by the Saboteurs (it's an Australian copy). I'm super excited for the Jack White album and I need a fix! Hmm, feel another back-to-back album splurge coming on, this time thorugh the entire White Stripes discography. Though I may settle for listening to his deb...

Matski

Specifically the new remastered version that is being streamed by NPR this week. It can be found here.

Matski

...Saying that, look at what the same reviewer did give 4.5 stars this week...

Hahaha, see this is what I like about AMG. Some may criticise their writing for being very generic but they also play fair to all types of listeners/genres. Leads to some very weird and unexpected outcomes...

Matski

Nick wrote:Mark my words. Once Todd Terje releases his debut in April, everybody is going to be going crazy over it. 9.3 from Pitchfork, 4.5/5 from AMG, etc.

Hate to break it to you Nick but Tim Sendra's review for AMG wasn't quite as enthusiastic as you may have hoped.

Matski

Matski

Thanks for the explanation. I tend to prefer to listen to another artist after an album by one artist. Two in a row is possible, but more than that is quite rare. That's understandable. I wouldn't listen to albums by the same artist back-to-back if I wasn't as well-acquainted with them first and di...

Matski

Yeah, late to notifying ya on that one. The same goes to Ghostface Killah's & Adrian Younge's "Twelve Reasons to Die": Current score - AllMusic Review Original Score - Metacritic Score There were only one-or-two 4.5's given for hip-hop projects last year and around the end of that time...

Matski

Why do you specifically prefer the reverse chronological order? Just curious... Mainly it's a preference to the way it flows between the four albums when played in that order: - The self-titled acts as a beautiful way to slowly warm into two more acclaim-garnering middle albums. When placed first i...

Matski

For the few of you yet to listen to the Todd Terje album everyone else here has been talking about, the Guardian now has a full album stream online: Todd Terje - It's Album Time | Music | theguardian.com ...so too do NPR, along with a few other albums as usual: NPR First Listen menu Todd Terje - It'...

Matski

http://www1.alibris-static.com/cover/g26869oyoc1.jpg http://www1.alibris-static.com/cover/r56656n3xxu.jpg http://www1.alibris-static.com/cover/q63764nszfm.jpg http://www4.alibris-static.com/cover/s25035lcj5n.jpg The Colour of Spring ~ Spirit of Eden ~ Laughing Stock ~ Mark Hollis The four of them t...

Matski

Here's some recent album streams from NPR for ease: The War on Drugs - Lost in the Dream Kevin Drew - Darlings Tycho - Awake But I adooored Present tense by the Wild Beasts! Very rich, sonically textured and with beautiful lyrics. Excellent! Yeah, Present Tense is a very worthy album to add to their...

Matski

Yeah, thanks for reminding me about Carla Bozulich. She's been consistently getting top grades on AMG too and as such I've been meaning to check this out.

Matski

No surprises about the new #1. However, the new #2 IS a bit of surprise. I expected it to rank but not quite that high. Kudos Ms. Cherry.

Matski

Well I posted a link to Neneh Cherry's new album, available on stream via NPR on the first page of this topic and we've also briefly talked about it in Otissredding's MCCh thread . Since then, the Guardian started streaming it too. Good to see someone else enjoying it. ;) does anyone know where I ca...

Matski

Their boards do seem to raving about what's happening. It might be too soon to start celebrating yet as they'll be more reviews for those albums next week. We'll see how they fair after that... ...Out of curiosity, which aggregator(s) do each of you favour the most, if any? Album of the Year , Any D...

Matski

I know that I play with an advantage: I can already foresee that the next update will have a fourth candidate: Neneh Cherry Yeah, nearly blindsided by that one. After listening to the stream for the first time today I started checking out the reviews and the all of the ones I've come across have be...

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