Elvis Costello once said, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really stupid thing to want to do." It's understandable why someone with his level of musical talent might think that way. However, for those who really appreciate music, but don't have the talent/looks/self-promotion ability to make a career of it, writing is not a bad outlet.
These days I think it's more important than ever, because good music is hard to find. Sure, the clubs can still clue you into some good hip-hop and dance music. But the radio has become a wasteland under the control of huge conglomerates who are increasingly rotating the same few songs over and over. MTV has become a reality TV channel. Unless you have satellite radio, or are able to catch the occasional bit of variety on MTV2, there's real a dearth of places to discover new music.
The traditional music mags (i.e. Rolling Stone, Spin, etc.) seem to have lost their way. I don't know if it's new editors, new music critics, or what, but it just seems they have fallen behind the curve and out of touch.
Fortunately a there's a wealth of good music criticism out there on the 'net. But like anything "out there on the 'net", there's a lot to wade through to find the good stuff. As an avid music fan with thousands of CDs as well as someone who's been a longtime reader of the music crit sites on the net (anyone else remember the now defunct Addicted To Noise, Consumable Online, or Mr. Showbiz Music Reviews?) I figure I'm as qualified as anyone to go all Rob Gordon on you. In that spirit, here's my current Top 5 music review sites.
Before I start, it's only fair I mention Metacritic, which is a site I use quite often, but is not on the list. The reason is that Metacritic does not offer any content of it's own. Instead, they use the ratings given by other critics, and apply a secret mathematical weighting to come up with a number they call a "Metascore" which is supposed to tell you the value of a particular album (or movie/game/book, which they also score). In general I find the Metascores to verge on useless since most albums tend to gravitate towards the same range (60-80 out of 100). However, they link to all the reviews used in the Metascore calculation that are available online. This makes them a great starting point from which to find many reviews of a particular album. However, they don't cover all the albums reviewed by every site, so they can hardly be relied on exclusively. That said, let's move on to sites actually doing music reviews...
5) cokemachineglow - I only heard of them a few months ago, but their willingness to go against the grain has really impressed me. Sometimes the "hot new album" that everyone else is touting is something that's really not going to stand the test of time. These guys aren't afraid to say it; they're willing to look like fools now only to be proven right later on. Of course, that in itself doesn't make a great music review site, but they've caught my attention and I'm excited to see how high they can rise (and hopefully not how quick they'll fall).
4) Trouser Press - This ranking is probably lower than it should be, but there's several reasons. Most of the material on the Trouser Press site can be found in the excellent Trouser Press Record Guides (books!), and I am used to referring to them instead of using the site. There's only been sporadic updates since the last book was released (1996), and the site was down for months at a stretch. It finally came back up with all the information available and searchable at once in August 2004. Since then, I've found myself using it more and more. All the reviews are all detailed, thoughtful, and well edited. I look forward to more post-1996 music being reviewed, for now you can check out the latest updates.
3) All-Music Guide - They are the 800 lb. gorilla in the music review space. Originally started in 1995, with the goal of being the most comprehensive music reference source on the web, they have largely fulfilled their goals. They have information on just about every artist you can think of, and they have reviews on most of their albums. However, their reviews are sometimes too bland, and their star ratings often differ from the tone of the review (i.e. high praise in the review, but only a 3 star rating). Still, AMG is my first stop when I want to learn about a particular artist, so I had to rank them in the top 5 for sure.
2) PopMatters - PopMatters bills itself as a magazine of "cultural criticism" and to that end they review Music, Film, Television, Books, and Software/Video Games. It's an impressive scope and they do an admirable job of providing interesting content in all areas. Even within the music section, they review a wider variety of albums than most sites and that is their strength. They're unafraid to review older albums, compilations, world music, etc. Most people's music collections aren't usually built on a single genre. Hip-hop, rock, electronic, latin, and house could easily be on the same shelf (or in the same folder). PopMatters reviews mirror this diversity and in doing so encourage readers to expand their listening tastes to encompass more of the finest music that exists in the world. The quality of the reviews does vary a bit depending on the contributing reviewer, but most of the time the results are very good, and I have made several excellent purchases based on positive PopMatters reviews.
1) Pitchfork - I'm as surprised as anyone about this top choice. Pitchfork has been around since '96 or so, and I remember in their first few years I found many of the reviews intolerable. They seemed like the work of a bunch of elitist kids desperately trying to establish a new level of hipness. The reviews tended to be gushy paeans to the cool new artist of the month, pointless put-downs of a "sellout" artist, or simply devoid of any real informational/critical value that would help someone discover a new band or make a purchase decision.
Take this gem of a review of Tone Soul Evolution by The Apples In Stereo. Half the review is spent bitching about not being able to get interviews with the band and complaints about how the band didn't send enough "promos" to warrant writing a better review. Or how about this pointless drubbing of Bachmann-Turner Overdrive's Best of B.T.O., where the reviewer spends the final paragraph wishing death upon the middle-aged beer, barbeque, and B.T.O. types. Way to prove your indie super-coolness, dude! But I think Pitchfork truly reached it's nadir with this review of Joe Strummer's Rock Art and The X-Ray Style. What a load of faux-Lester Bangs style garbage. (Ed: links now point to archive.org since Pitchfork appears to have removed older reviews entirely.)
Ok, so now you are probably wondering why the hell I have them at number one. Is this some David Letterman Top Ten type deal, where the #1 choice is kinda weird/stupid? Nope. Somewhere between 1999 & 2000 things started to change. The writers seemed to start putting real thought and effort into all the reviews. The indie bias was lessened somewhat and they phased out most of the prove-our-indie-cred reviews. It wasn't like they went soft or anything. In fact, they were just as likely to skewer a poor or mediocre album. The difference was, instead of a glib dismissal, the review would break down all the weaknesses of the album point by point. Far more devastating, and ultimately more useful to the reader.
But what vaults them into the number one spot, wasn't just the huge improvement in the writing. It was that they started to dig deeper into the piles of music they received for review and unearth gems that no one else was finding. Rather than just rubber stamping what was already deemed "cool", and dissing what was widely considered "uncool", they started championing lesser known (and totally unknown) artists based only on the quality of the music. In the process, they became the trend-setters and taste-makers that they probably always wanted to be.
For example, there's no doubt in my mind that their glowing review of Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People was the catalyst that broke the band to a wider audience. They were also among the first to identify soon-to-be-classics by Modest Mouse and Dismemberment Plan. They turned me on to everything from Hot Hot Heat to the Notwist.
I realized how far they had come when it became a regular thing for me to discover great new bands and new music solely through their reviews. Sure, I still disagree with some of their reviews, but when I do, at least I understand where they are coming from. I look forward to their new content daily, but if you don't visit them regularly, just check out the Best New Music section and you'll surely find some new music worth looking into.