So the developer of AOTY changed how critic ratings work for the top list so albums have to have 5 reviews at least... Just pretend that it's still a good point.
The creator of AOTY just said on the discord that he changed the minimum ratings on the all time critics list to 5 because of this video, apparently it being less than 5 was never intended lul
Loved the video and appreciate the inclusion. While AOTY is what I use for all my reviews, and for social stuff, RYM is super important for finding information on niche albums. Many smaller albums on AOTY before 2010 are almost nonexistent for reviews or scores. I’ll usually head over to RYM on smaller stuff because it is the few nerds who are willing to deep dive into things very few others would, which kinda counteracts the overwhelming mess of the most popular stuff on the site. Also I completely agree. No one cares about the critic scores on the site. I honestly am just interested in Fantano scores for my own personal interest, but I’ve never been like “oh rolling stone and Allmusic love this album so it must be good!” But yeah anyways you got a sub from me. Keep up the great work
Kinda facts brad. A lot of my friends ask how I find such obscure albums and it’s thanks to the like 500+ item lists on rym of “hidden gems” or “genre deep dives” and it’s great for that
I genuinely couldn't tell if he was joking ROFL. He overestimated that by an utterly absurd margin, the percentage of people who know about RYM is definitely way way below 1%
just looking at the political alignment of the users there, it's definitely gonna be as well-known as online-only stuff that only chronically online people know
@@angel_of_rust the recent Tom MacDonald and Adam Calhoun collab album has a 0.59 on there, which is almost the lowest possible score for a release, but in reality those two do (unfortunately) have a large audience
kinda surprised at the preference for AOTY's review-base; it's obviously personal opinion but I find the RYM "pretentious" reviews FAR more interesting than shallow comments. I think it's fascinating seeing some random person I'll never know, not a critic, make a three paragraph write up for some random shit that just released, it shows the passion and dedication to music, I think it's super cool! Additionally, I actually pretty regularly recognize reviewers on RYM, especially considering I listen to primarily a lot of new releases and there's a lot of recurring reviewers who review most new releases
I would completely agree especially as someone who listens to a lot of music from my home country which maybe only 25 million people speak the language of, so I see a lot of the same reviewers constantly using the site and it is always really fun to see.
@@generalvuk8291 that's really cool; with the new RYM update too they've made some quality of life improvements, the search engine is vastly improved, some visual changes, etc., I think it's definitlely moving in a good direction while keeping it's vibe as a more resource-focused cataloguing website
i would agree if there werent also these long reviews on aoty as well. There is some really profound opinions on there that can be heart wrenching at times.
I love the user-friendliness and sense of community with AOTY. It really feels like its more centered around building a community around the albums you love than just finding music, it brings a lot more discussion. Amazing video :D
Ok last comment What was wrong with that review? It seemed pretty good to me. Theyre talking about how unique George Clanton and his music is as somebody who fits within both the pop and vapor scenes. Like if I'm looking for an album to listen to and I read that it'll pique my interest to actually give the album a shot? Like not everything has to be a personal heartfelt kind of thing. Sometimes it's nice to just give reasons why an album is cool and unique and worth your time.
"No that is pretentious, real reviews are just memes, one-liners and quips." Yes, I understand that some reviews may be pretentious, but common. How bad is it that someone can concisely argue and give reasons why a certain work (be it a movie, book, or album) is worthy of appreciation? Reviewing an album is much more than giving an score. A simple score adds nothing to the discussion.
@@yeetodeleto1358yeah, the arguments in this video are pretty weak. (It's why I made so many comments) I feel like he already had a deep bias towards AOTY for whatever reason before making this video and then just created arguments to justify this personal bias despite them not really making very much sense.
@@bladonski It's definitely just prejudice against RYM for having those long reviews and not memes, and most of his arguments are nonsensical because of their fallacies. It's just sad because I was hoping for a balanced review and was served trash.
@@yeetodeleto1358unfortunately that's just the state of youtube content. When anyone can upload something it means you've got to sift through mounds of trash to find something worth while.
The main reason why I stopped reviewing on AOTY was precisely because of the thing you're praising. There isn't a stigma around writing pointless, joke reviews on AOTY, so it's basically a Letterboxd wasteland of people, who have nothing to say and just clog up the section with boring, wannabe funny one-liners and I hate that. What you're calling "long-winded" and "pretentious" are well-constructed write-ups that discuss important context surrounding the creation of the albums and their place amongst their contemporaries' projects. Maybe there are some intriguing interpretations to notice that make you look at a piece from a different perspective, maybe there are literary gems that make Fantano look illiterate in comparison to the user in question, etc. What I'm saying is that serious reviews should be 500x more common than the average half-joke verbal diarrhea that plagues AOTY and that's why RYM will always have a better review section. Sincerely, an active AOTY user.
I absolutely agree with you, while the guy makes fair points in his video, reviews on RYM are usually sooo much more interesting even if you have to sift through walls of puke sometimes. I'd rather scroll for an extra second than be met with tons of one-liner quips like I feel like I see on AOTY
oh no, both of those sites are heavily plagued by unimportant non-reviews by people whose opinion on music don't matter at all. doesn't help they're predominantly populated by left-wing people, so the only intelligible reviews are those from at least a decade ago
I felt in love with aoty. I found it while watching Brad, so I'm happy you mentioned him! I use aoty frequently, but mainly I love browsing around lists in order to find new albums. I have to say, one thing that I also love is the fact that you can implement albums and artists that are missing! One time I looked all around my playlist and I added what I couldnt find on aoty. It's a great video!!
I was introduced to AOTY thanks to Brad, and it was a gateway for me to truly start getting into music. I really love how user friendly the website is, and it's great for actually letting you build a profile and share your music tastes + favorite albums with other users. AOTY is not without its flaws (bot attacks suck, and the whole "Brad/Fantano effect" debates get super tiresome really quickly), but despite that, the website has done wonders for introducing me to artists, albums, and genres I never would've discovered otherwise. And I feel the environment is friendlier and less pretentious than RYM. If I never found AOTY (or Brad's channel), I probably would've fallen out of music at some point, or even worse, still be listening to the radio... And the mainstream radio is in a BAAAAAD state right now lmao. It's been that way for the past couple of years now... Great video!
@@ASCENSiON_ dude fr. I always loved his style. Watch his Loveless - My Bloody Valentine it’s his best old vid. He’s a nice break from all the constant chaos that is my life😂
i love how aoty always feels so much more like a social media platform, it makes having conversations and building connections with other users of the site way easier. it's something that always motivates me to listen to new stuff !
My two biggest points of contention here are that longer reviews are inherently pretentious (some are, but many do give in-depth perspectives) and that RYM is "more negative" just because of how your average user rates things (the algorithm also takes some influence as people without varied ratings remain with low weightings so most people have 2.5-4 as the bulk of their ratings). That being said, I can understand how AOTY might be significantly more welcoming for people who are just "getting" into music. It's nowhere near as good of a database as RYM (which is itself not as thorough as Discogs), but it's only ehen you're deep into the culture that you rabbit hole side projects and studio musicians. RYM has some pretty decent automatic recommendations (it has some recency bias, mind you), and sadly the similar album recs are locked behind paid accounts unless either it's in the current year's top X (don't remember the number) or someone sponsored the release page.
Honestly, while I like some aspects of AOTY a lot more, I think I might still end up sticking with RYM just due to the sheer size of the database. Both cover the bigger albums, but there is some for me in finding that one Mathcore record no one’s rated and just going “eh, fuck it, I’ll give it a listen.”
as an avid rym user, i think you nailed it on the head. rym is a more personal experience for me. i like to catalog what i listen to and it's great at that. but i don't interact that much with the community there. i tried with the forums, but it's just very annoying to engage with. i don't use aoty, because i don't think i'd get much out of the community aspect. for people who actually want to discuss music and not just catalog, aoty is definitely the better option.
I concur. I feel the exact same way about the difference between rym and aoty. RYM is still probably better when it comes to cataloging my music and getting recommendations for new releases or expanding my taste past the descriptors that I already use. I think the names of the sites say it all - Rate YOUR music is personal and Album of the YEAR is very broad, thus invoking community discussions to decide the best albums, and I'm not for rankings and ratings tbh so I'll stick with rym just like you.
Yeah I feel the same way. No interest in the community aspect and rym's genre tags to find niche stuff in specific styles is unmatched. For what I'm using the website for, rym is the better option. Aoty looks decent but the stuff it does differently I'm not looking for. Not to say I don't have issues with rym, like how slow site updates are and how many people feel a need to rate everything.
This really comes down to an ego thing I guess. Some people just can't handle going against the grain, or the reality of an average opinion. I couldn't care less that most of my favourite music on rym has like < 3.5 cause like, who cares? I like what I like I don't give a shit that some nerds think it's lame. Maybe that's the difference here. I use rym to catalogue the music I listen to because I listen to a lot of music and I like the fact that I can have this record of my opinions on stuff in the past so I can actually return to stuff. I like how rym is light weight and efficient for a website, and how thorough it's genres are so I can explore more niche music. Speaking of niche music, a lot of stuff I listen to has like < 50 ratings on rym so I'm not even sure they would be on aoty. I also like how you can export user data as CSV on rym so you can analyze the shit out of your own data and others as well.
I pretty much take RYM ratings with a grain of salt after reading the reviews for Coldplay's Something Just Like This. Nowadays I don't even bother going on RYM since I know there will be negative reviews for everything
The fact that you can't filter by country is a big deal breaker for me. My best finds on RYM were to go on a music trip from artists from specific countries that interest me.
Mhhh... how to put it in a nice way that doesn't come across as rude... Rym's charts by countries are staight bullshit. The music that gets recommended by that site is so different to the music that people from said countries listen, it's basically night and day. I'm from Mexico, and the fact that Natalia Lafourcade's most recent album is at the tip if that list feels wrong on many levels. It's a good album, don't get me wrong, but it's not the best representation of Mexican culture. Hell, if it wasn't for fantano giving it a 9 it probably wouldn't be as popular as it is on rym. Her most well-known material here came about 5 to 10 years ago, not that many Mexican people actually listened to this record, it was a more underground release. If you look at the rest of the top 40 albums from that list, there's cafe tacvba and caifanes (which, fair enough, it's the go to music for clinically online people but it is extremely popular here for a reason), Mon Laferte (who is actually from chile and only got the Mexican nationality fairly recently, tho she lived here for more than ten years so it's valid), a lot of indie rock that barely anyone has heard of. Meanwhile there's only one Luis Miguel album, only one José José album, only one Ska Punk (a vwry popular genre here, more than in the us) by maldita vecindad and no panteón rococo, no Vicente Fernandez, no Julieta Venegas, the "rock en tu idioma" when it's not underground indie rock it's basically a monopoly. And worst of all, NOT A SINGLE MENTION OF JUAN GABRIEL, THE MOST CRITCALLY ACCLAIMED AND COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL MAN IN MEXICAN HISTORY. AND HE'S BARELY THERE. The most successful Mexican composer and songwriter is not in the top 40, hell the first album of his that you'll find it on the 119th spot, barely in the 3rd page of the list. And the same can be said for the rest of latin america or even the rest of the world, few of what gets recommended on rym actually represents what people hear outside the internet. If you thought it was bad for American and British music, imagine how bad it is for other cointries. Now I'm not saying that aoty is flawless or that sorting by countries is an inherently bad idea. It's just, the way that it gets done on rym is legitimately bad. It's basically GENTRIFICATION OF MUSIC but instead of rich people, there's online nerds everywhere. Something that aoty does do is tagging certain albums from certain places, most of these tags are done by people from those countries or from people that found cool music from around the world and want to share it with the rest of the internet. That way, what gets recommended is the popular, the acclaimed, the underground, and the lost and found. A little bit of everything fpr everyone. It's not perfect, aoty ia also guilty of the natalia lafourcade example i gave earlier and it also doesn't have as many albums as one would hope, so it definitely needs improvement, but overall it's a better system. I hope this rant wasn't too tiring, but I needed thia to get out of my chest. My suggestion is, if you want to find music from other countries, it's better to make friends from around the world and ask them what they like and what everyone else in their communities like, or at the very list, find a radio station that fits your niche. All I'm saying is, a website that's notorious for resembling a monolithic state of mind shouldn't be the first place where you should try foreign music, there are better ways around it. Keep in mind, this is not a personal attack, this is just a suggestion and a rant. Sincerely, and actual foreigner.
@eliasmg9144 the rym charts aren't 'recommendations' per se, just a ranking of the top rated albums based on whatever genre, descriptor, language, etc you choose. And to your point about how some of the most popular musicians within a certain culture aren't represented in the top 40, the same can be said about the most popular American/English artists too. Drake and Taylor swift are two of the most popular artists in the world and garner high praise from music critics (mostly), but you won't find their albums in the top 500, let alone the top 40. Just because they're super popular doesn't mean that chronically online people like their music. I assume the same can be said about any country.
I've been a regular RYM user for the last 5 years and honestly it's what got me into music to begin with. I like the pretentious reviews because it feels like people put effort into thinking about the music and giving comprehensive reasons about why they like it, and AOTY has plenty of that too! I think it comes down to personal preference and which format you like more, because honestly I don't think the two communities are as different as people make them out to be. I do agree though that AOTY has a better format for creating more personalized user pages.
I use RYM to discover new music even if I don´t engage with the community but one thing I discovered was that, on less known albums in RYM, there is a community of people who make fun of the RYM redditor mindset, specially in some comment sections and genres like harsh noise. That aspect has made my stay at RYM a lot better and it relieved the pressure of "having a bad music taste", now I just look up new stuff that I`m interested in, listen to it some times, rate it and get on with my life. Also great video, I´ll check out some of my favorite albums on AOTY and see if I move there or alternate both websites, I just "got into music" half a year ago so I can make the move easily.
@@khawlskater the stereotype of pretentious RYM user thats mentioned in the video, with the experimental hip hop, art rock and post rock albums. Sorry if its not completely understandable, english is not my first language
RYM has: - a way bigger database - a way bigger userbase (more ratings for obscure stuff, sometimes stuff not even on AOTY yet) - better weighted charts (so you can actually get what people are rating high instead of something one guy gave a 100) - an incredible chart customization function - many important genres missing from AOTY - a very comprehensive release adding system (so no mistakes are made, like singles being listed as EPs just because the other singles are attached to it on streaming services, which happens WAY too often on AOTY) - doesn't keep logging me out all the time - why the hell does AOTY default to critic score?!? - actual reviews instead of 5 word sentences - actually lets you search from every genre on the chart page instead of just 23 of them (the rest of them you have to find an album with that genre and then click it, scroll down past the critic section and then click the user rated section (which is stupid) - RYM isn't weird about what you can and can't do track ratings for. It just lets you do it for everything - you telling me there have only been 15 dark ambient albums this decade? AND THE 3RD HIGHEST IS THE DUNE SOUNDTRACK????? AOTY only succeeds at separating albums and singles on your profile instead of grouping them all into one section like RYM does. that's it. nothing else. (i use rym to rate albums and i use aoty to rate singles because i like to separate albums and singles)
@dwahwuiadhwaiudwuhwaiudhwa1494 Here are a few: Math Pop, Winter Synth, Progressive Breaks, Dream Trance, Freakbeat, Mod, Skiffle, New Romantic, Hi-NRG, Italo Disco, Latin House, Trap Latino, Celtic New Age, Jersey Drill
"a way bigger userbase (more ratings for obscure stuff, sometimes stuff not even on AOTY yet)" I agree, there are many albums that become popular because of RYM. Examples of these include albums from artists such as Parannoul, Asia Menor, Kairon Irse, X-Cetra, Candelabro, Carousels, etc. Unfortunately a lot of people (like Liam Anthony) tend to limit themselves to the Top 100 and sees RYM as an "ultimate truth about music" rather than a big database with thousands of genres, albums, labels, artists and descriptors.
Ok last last comment That thing you talked about on aoty with like listening to people who listen to a lot of music applies to rym too. It's how I find a lot of my music. You just won't find it in the reviews section, you'll find it as lists. For example, I get a lot of music from this rym user aspiritualmoon who makes lists of very very very specific sounds or styles of music. I've found lots of albums I love from his lists. So this doesn't really act as a point against rym at all. You just have to learn how rym operates in that regard.
As a really big AOTY reviewer I really loved this video lol, glad for someone to put a full analysis on this debate! Great job on the video it was awesome, keep it up :3 💜
@@shitmeister2595 and on aoty there are people who rate an album 74 and say it was disappointing and mid. i suppose it's partially because of the demographics of these websites, aoty has more younger people, rym has more oldheads who are there since the inception
Something I really like about AOTY is the community. Sure, it’s a little silly sometimes, but those trusted reviewers you mentioned seem like super awesome people. Like, THE Shadow the Hedgehog followed me on AOTY, like, how supportive is that? He has thousands of followers, one of the bigger people on the site, and he still just dropped a follow. Love that site
As a RYM user since 2017, and whose entire music taste was shaped by looking at RYM, the X/5 system seems harsh due to the "four point scale" mentality that we've come to expect. In reality, it kinda boils down to "above 3.0 good, below 3.0 bad".
Been using AOTY for nearly two years now and have met some of the coolest people I would’ve never met on a much more populated RYM. AOTY is the perfect type of niche where it’s small enough for everyone on the site to be a familiar face, yet big enough to have a strong community full of all types of users who listen to all types of music. I find AOTY to be more sociable (especially when they added the general chat), where as in RYM, it’s more of everyone defending for themselves. Personally, I feel as you have more importance, and more impact on AOTY due to it being smaller. Great video :]
RYM is imo better because it is 100% community reviews. Though the reviews can be a bit pretentious on there I would still rather have that than letterboxd type one liners every other review as I feel AOTY has. I also enjoy the more critical ratings. It makes me question and rationalize and actively think as to why I enjoy the music I do despite it not always aligning with the general RYM consensus. Though I will say AOTY is way sleeker looking
But the User/Critic reviews/ratings are completely seperate, so you can ignore it if you don't like it, but it's there just in case you were interested in what publications thought of it.
@@rockstarrzz7171 Fair point honestly. But even then i like how much data RYM has over its decades long existance, also the detailed genre sorting is great
@eliasmsv3156 yeah I will admit the genre sorting on RYM looks way better, it's a bit of a mess on AOTY and annoying to find highest rated/most popular albums of certain genre sometimes
straight off the bat: "40% of people are into music and of those 20% know what RYM is" that's 640 million people there are only about a million users on RYM, so it's not looking like a good start
Honestly with my experience on AOTY it's just such a fun place to check out music and has such a strong sense of community. The joy I have when I'm geeking out with someone over an album that has like less than 100 ratings or when a popular reviewer checks out an album I recommended is amazing.
3:03 to be fair, if you see an album with a user score of at least 85 you can basically treat that as a 100. It's very rare to get that many users to collectively agree that something is higher than that.
I definitely prefer rym because it's 100% user score and also god the genre sorting is so good I get hard thinking of it. Tho I'm thinking of maybe occasionally using aoty. I don't care for reviews and never read them so that doesn't affect me. I just scroll see something that sparks my interests, and listen.
I mean it’s not like the critic score really changes anything about the user score or anything like that, it’s just there, so I don’t really get that first point, second point is true though
Don't know about the first point, but agree with the second. I also would like to add that the comment box on RYM is... interesting to put it lightly. Especially on larger releases. Definitely recommend going through a few of them if you hate yourself btw, it is a very cathartic experience to say the least.
personally I have always preffered rym to aoty by a wide margin, for a few reasons. personal preference is that i just like the look of rym far better, but also finding new music on rym is so easy and fun for me. sometimes i feel like rym is a music wikipedia because just like wikipedia i can get lost following links to new pages, there's always something new. i definitely think rym's older taste in the charts is probably just because of the older audience rym had until a couple years ago, but it has gotten much younger and at this point i'd say aoty and rym's active userbase is pretty similar. even the aoty top 10 user rated albums is starting to look almost just like rym's. honestly rym gets a lot of slack for basically a stereotype of its users that I dont think really exists too much anymore, i really do think it's far better than aoty. aoty is still a good website, just too critic focused for me. i will say neither website has a great rating system, i'd prefer a simple 1-10 scale
Much love and respect to your videos about rate your music and album of the year. There are a few things that I want to point out after these 2 videos. I realized numerous times you have expressed your uncomfortable feelings about looking up a score on RYM. That's the same feeling people have when they watch a needle drop video. "Shit, this guy/these guys thought about an album that way, then that just means their opinions are "valid" ones or i don't know, there must be something wrong with me" I think it's important to not fall into this thought fallacy and see that at the end of the day it all comes down to taste and you have your own reasons to like or dislike an album just like these guys have their reasons. What RYM or AOTY can possibly ultimately achieve is point towards an album that you might like based on what "what other people liked on average", just like iMDb.
Shout out to Brad, his videos introduced me (and a lot of people) to AOTY I’ve always preferred AOTY to RateYourMusic due to the more modern look of its interface and its 100-point rating scale, which is useful if you like having a meticulous rating system. I think one of the downsides to having a smaller userbase than RYM is that some obscure albums from decades past, which have at least a decent amount of ratings on RYM tend to have very few on AOTY. I have had to add some pages for fairly popular singles over the past few years too.
great video! i know you’ve already gotten a bunch of comments from popular aoty users already but i think this video really encapsulates that feeling of when you first join the website. granted there is an unfortunate underbelly to it all but i think that average users who don’t stray far beyond the website should have a much more enjoyable time than rym
DYNAMO AND BOCANADA MENTIONED 🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥 good taste my dude also yeah Aoty's feels so much comfier than RYM from the websites design to the community Aoty's literally music letterboxd lol
only on AOTY will you see an in-depth analysis of Greta Van Fleet and why they're one of the best bands of all time next to an one sentence review that's just "Her loss for those who are in retirement homes."
the AOTY scoring system just makes me feel better about ratings than RYM as a great album dropping in the current year can and will get a 8 or even a 9. If you translate the 5 star ratings to an out of 10 score then just flat out no albums reach a 9 (4.5) on RYM. Not even OK Computer or TPAB. And only about 150 albums score above an 8 (4.5) It just feels awfully strange. AOTYs ability to give a high 70 or even an 80 to basically anything is really cool and I love the handful of projects ive found because of it (Squid for example). And even if I disagree with a score, I still feel better about the score being given on AOTY than I do on RYM. If AOTY would just add a section to an artists page for live albums it would be a great site in my opinion. If you translate the 5 star ratings to an out of 10 score then just flat out no albums reach a 9 (4.5) on RYM. Not even OK Computer or TPAB. And only about 150 albums score above an 8 (4
You can sort by an artist's live albums (and compilations, mixtapes, soundtracks etc.) on their page, and just using the filter on the left. If you want to see everything they've outputted (including singles) you can select it there, it's just that the default is LPs and EPs
if look at it from the prospective of the highest rated album being 4.3, you start to see that getting above 4 there is really impressive and rare, so even let's say 3.4-3.6 ratings say to me that these are likely some solid great albums. I even kinda think RYM has these ratings better spread across the board, on AOTY you have to do real bad to get even an average of 45 (which is just below medium), or to be AJR, Imagine Dragons, Chainsmokers, Nav, Meghan Trainor only then your average is around that 20 mark
@@EntrEsprit TBH, I am surprised people are really opinionated on the ratings aspect of RYM. I always felt like the design decision to keep it 5 stars was to keep it simple for the user to rate their own enjoyment of a piece of music. For example, what makes something a 67 as opposed to a 68 on AOTY for the user? But 3 to a 3.5 is a relatively bigger jump. So, while cataloging, instead of seeing them as marks or scores, I would much rather see them as buckets. 3-3.5 is good, 3.5-4 is great, 4-4.5 is amazing, 4.5-5 is damn near perfect and so on. And when you want to search for some music, they are ranked in a chart anyway, so the weighted average of ratings is kinda useless in that regard. If people are too concerned about what their favorite album is rated by others, and thus, like music discussions, AOTY might be the better place.
@@arkayv i agree with that, i always preferred simpler 10 rating system or 5 star system like on RYM. I don't know why some people need to rate the albums in specific numbers like 73, 78, 79. When i visit someone's page on AOTY i'd like to see which albums does the guy actually likes more or thinks are better, and with this overcomplicated system the line is more blurred because do you actually prefer an album you gave 83 than the album you gave 81 or this difference doesn't really represent anything
4:48 This part of the video is literally perfect. It shows why it doesn't exactly matter which one is better just which one you prefer and I agree with everything you said about both sites.
Hello man, I would like to share my opinion with you, I saw your last video about rym and now I just watched this one, and I think some things: I think you take too seriously what people think about the majority of what the average score would be, you see yourself as attacked or as if you couldn't have your own opinion that the conclusion you reached in the previous video is not that, We all have to have our opinion but you moved to Aoty and now you feel like you feel more accepted or something like that just because the classification system is different and the communities are different, plus there are fewer people in Aoty. The reason why you feel that rym is uglier than aoty is because rym is from the 2000s while aoty is newer, I really agree with you but I think that using rym has a kind of feeling of nostalgia also for the old interface. That's just my opinion, everyone can think as they want, but some of the arguments you gave seriously seem quite silly. I also think that you don't have the concept of "review" very much because I understand that you want to see funny comments on aoty or rym but the comments section is right there, there is no need to make a review a stupid comment. I think that due to the number of rym users and the variety of things you can do there, despite being a very old page, it meets all the needs and the only good thing I can see about aoty is that it is new and has almost no opinions.
yea aoty is pretty good... FOR REVIEWS. For discovering music I always turn to rym first because their genre tags are really well organized. In aoty you get things like You Will Never Know Why by Sweet Trip being shoegaze???????
I like the user friendly interface comparison section because that does actually bother me on rym but I didn't register that opinion in my mind until I heard you say it
I prefer RYM simply because it has a bigger database. Really obscure albums just don’t have anything mentioned on AOTY while they have at least a few reviews on RYM. Will check out AOTY again though.
The only reason I even know what RYM is is because I was a Radiohead fan. I watched some video about them and saw the website mentioned, so I immediately checked it out. I was happy to see OK Computer high up, a little shocked about In Rainbows, and then just disappointed at Kid A. It does not require a genius to be able to recognize the very obvious bias in RYM due to the people that use it. It can be daunting to write reviews of albums sense it feels like there’s a ton of pressure to match the skill of the people who have rated 10,000+ albums on the website, but at the same time, you don’t want to seem like an idiot in your review especially if it’s an album you genuinely care about and want to write a good review for. It kind of creates a very toxic atmosphere in RYM even though there is little to none direct communication with anyone on there. At the same time, I also dislike RYM since it feels a lot harder to pick an exact number 1-100 than to give a couple of stars to something. I don’t see a 10/10 album as perfect, I just see a 10/10 album as the highest possible level of enjoyment you can have in an album. If there’s an album where you really enjoy every single moment in it except for maybe a single lyric, that’s still a 10. It’s to the point where any minor issue(s) with the album is irrelevant compared to the rest of the quality material on it. I just realized I went on a yap session and wrote my problems with RYM, AOTY, and the pressure of having to “rate” music better than I’ve ever written a review for an album. Maybe because there is absolutely 0 influence in my writing of this and I don’t feel any competition with the other commenters in this comment section. In conclusion, the music community is becoming more and more toxic and basic every day. The people who LOVE Radiohead just because they get good reviews on the internet and the people who HATE Radiohead just because they get good reviews on the internet are not helping make the community any better. We’re all just nerds in the end of the day, what matters is if you’re actually passionate about your own opinions and don’t let others influence your opinions to be more positive or negative towards an album.
I love AOTY but I also tend to ignore the critics' reviews lmfao. I also find it weird that a trend on AOTY is people listening to genres they hate just so they can say the music sucks? Sometimes it's pretty good music, it's just not their cup of tea. Idk if that makes sense tho.
Also, the thing ab genres is totally fair lol. But tbh for me personally it doesn't bother me that much bc I tend to rate and review my music or things that have been reccomended to me instead of browsing through genres, but that's also cool :D
@@ghostf1903 Jokes aside, I feel like a lot of music nerds get satisfaction from rating things instead of enjoying the music or learning something about it.
Rym user and I don’t really look at the reviews anymore I just scroll to the comments. It’s usually small reviews or an argument either is entertaining. And I agree with you on the rym bias. They overrate indie rock so hard it’s gotta be the most highly rated genre on the site.
@@d0ubl3d the most popular of all time chart is filled to the brim with indie rock, every new indie rock album that comes out tops the yearly charts and has a high rating etc.
Anglospheric problems, phh in places outside of the anglosphere there isn't much info on rym and especially not aoty so i end up adding a bunch of albums, credits and artists to the site - and they end up getting 15 ratings at best without any reviews
As an AOTY user, it also incentivizes reviewers to grow their reader base and engage with the community. Whether that be by the shoutbox, or commenting. It makes it easy and accessible to make yourself known on the site and thats lovely.
As someone that spent a lot of time on AOTY before exploring RYM I was kinda shocked how low scores were just generally, it was incredibly rare to find anything above a 4 which when translated to a 10 or a 100 scale is 8/10 or 80/100, like really? there's really so few albums that meet 8/10 quality on RYM? Something like ants from up there by BCNR has a 90 on AOTY, and only the equivalent of an 80 on RYM. Even other really highly regarded albums like TPAB on AOTY has a fucking 95 while on RYM it doesn't even crack 90. It really does seem like RYM users are much more critical. On more the site itself side of things you're absolutely right about genres and RYM, if I ever want to thoroughly explore a genre, especially chronologically, RYM is my go-to.
as someone who understands that art is subjective, ive grown to not let other peoples opinions shame me into not likeing something since its my opinion
aoty has a significantly smaller database compared to rym iirc. if ur into a single super niche genre OR want to explore obscure/ultra independent music (ppl that only made 20 cassettes of their ambient album or smtn) then aoty is completely useless (if you're going to just stick to one, which makes sense to do). n all my friends that are hugely into music usually do both of these if not one so none of them can use aoty. i dont use aoty bc of this but im sure its community is better than rym bc ryms community is pretty terrrible i dont like websites that endorse critics either, music critics are nearly always a plague on the artform
i could not care less for rym reviews or forum posts. i just like the huge database of albums that rym has and that is what aoty lacks. i listen to lots of metal and aoty has several bands that i enjoy (dark millennium as an example) with a bunch of releases missing. I would switch in a heartbeat if aoty had good genre sorting, a better database, and overall a better ui since i kinda do prefer ryms ui a tiny bit more. i also do feel that the smaller userbase is a bit of a disadvantage as well. its harder to get a concise answer to whether or not an album is worth your time due to the lack of ratings for releases. but yeah good video keep it up.
I feel the same about RYM. I don't give a shit about the community and the Top 100. I only use the site to create my own custom charts and find more music.
Yes! I was waiting for this one ever since I watched your RYM video. Loved your commentary on this! Pretty much agreed with everything you said. AOTY is SO MUCH more user-friendly and navigable, as well it being more of an actual community of people and bringing a lot more attention to smaller underground artists that are beloved to the site (e.g., Swans, Bjork, Danny Brown, etc.), that I would've NEVER discovered otherwise. Been on it since last March. (a small thank you to Brad Taste in Music for that one)
I think aoty does work better for a more community driven thing, like following accounts and stuff. But Rate your music works 1000x better than aoty for music discovery beyond the surface level. Rate your music just has so many more ratings and if you're in to weird releases and listen to tons of music it works so much better for cataloguing. There are also very small communitys on rate your music full of people who are into really small niches, that recommend albums to each other. So while aoty is better for rating albums I think rym is way better for music discovery. Also the reason I think that ratings are so much higher on aoty is because on rym you're restricted to 10 different ratings. So if you want to rate an album a 74 it would be a 70 on rym.
What really drew me to using AOTY was the numbered scores as opposed to stars on RYM. Essentially, on RYM you can only rate by 10’s. To me, there’s a significant difference between an album I’d rate a 70 and one I’d rate a 79 Also love the automatic Best of Year section on AOTY profiles
i luv aoty i actually feel connected to people there, it’s way more social-media like than rym also i have the top review on icedancer by bladee, slipknot’s self-titled, and you’d prefer an astronaut by hum so im probably biased :3
AOTY simply has the better interface and better sense of community. I find and follow a lot of people I like and have garnered a following. Also, I love scrolling down the reviews of a new album that is rating extremely well and seeing a popular user give it a RED score... just makes the review way more interesting than something like "2 stars."
I personally prefer RYM. I just like the way they sort genres a lot more and I really don't like the critic scores on AOTY. I am a nerd though so that might influence my opinion.
So the developer of AOTY changed how critic ratings work for the top list so albums have to have 5 reviews at least... Just pretend that it's still a good point.
lalalala i can’t hear you
There is a 0% chance that 600 million people know what rym is
Maybe 10 million
@@mitra1307maybe, just barely, but like 10 mil don’t actively engage with rym
@@mitra1307 no
Maybe 2 million@@mitra1307
@@mitra1307and AOTY 500k
The creator of AOTY just said on the discord that he changed the minimum ratings on the all time critics list to 5 because of this video, apparently it being less than 5 was never intended lul
Lol thats awesome
There's a discord?
He wasn’t cappin they did fix it
Loved the video and appreciate the inclusion. While AOTY is what I use for all my reviews, and for social stuff, RYM is super important for finding information on niche albums. Many smaller albums on AOTY before 2010 are almost nonexistent for reviews or scores. I’ll usually head over to RYM on smaller stuff because it is the few nerds who are willing to deep dive into things very few others would, which kinda counteracts the overwhelming mess of the most popular stuff on the site. Also I completely agree. No one cares about the critic scores on the site. I honestly am just interested in Fantano scores for my own personal interest, but I’ve never been like “oh rolling stone and Allmusic love this album so it must be good!”
But yeah anyways you got a sub from me. Keep up the great work
appreciate the support brad, been watching your content for a while now, so crazy to see you in my comments
Kinda facts brad. A lot of my friends ask how I find such obscure albums and it’s thanks to the like 500+ item lists on rym of “hidden gems” or “genre deep dives” and it’s great for that
If there's anything small not on AOTY, I've got you.
I completely agree with everything here
Yooo Brad comment!! Liam should join the Brad Army lmao
i strongly strongly doubt 8% of people on this planet know of the existence of RYM
I genuinely couldn't tell if he was joking ROFL. He overestimated that by an utterly absurd margin, the percentage of people who know about RYM is definitely way way below 1%
just looking at the political alignment of the users there, it's definitely gonna be as well-known as online-only stuff that only chronically online people know
@@angel_of_rust the recent Tom MacDonald and Adam Calhoun collab album has a 0.59 on there, which is almost the lowest possible score for a release, but in reality those two do (unfortunately) have a large audience
im sorry but not 640 mil people know what rym is lmaooooo... u underestimate how chronically online these communities are
not even a 100 milion
kinda surprised at the preference for AOTY's review-base; it's obviously personal opinion but I find the RYM "pretentious" reviews FAR more interesting than shallow comments. I think it's fascinating seeing some random person I'll never know, not a critic, make a three paragraph write up for some random shit that just released, it shows the passion and dedication to music, I think it's super cool! Additionally, I actually pretty regularly recognize reviewers on RYM, especially considering I listen to primarily a lot of new releases and there's a lot of recurring reviewers who review most new releases
I would completely agree especially as someone who listens to a lot of music from my home country which maybe only 25 million people speak the language of, so I see a lot of the same reviewers constantly using the site and it is always really fun to see.
@@generalvuk8291 that's really cool; with the new RYM update too they've made some quality of life improvements, the search engine is vastly improved, some visual changes, etc., I think it's definitlely moving in a good direction while keeping it's vibe as a more resource-focused cataloguing website
i would agree if there werent also these long reviews on aoty as well. There is some really profound opinions on there that can be heart wrenching at times.
I love the user-friendliness and sense of community with AOTY. It really feels like its more centered around building a community around the albums you love than just finding music, it brings a lot more discussion. Amazing video :D
My thoughts exactly!
yooo its grave from AOTY 😱
my man
Hi grave 👋
@@yaboyegreja7750 haiii :D
The AOTY George Clanton review was beyond unfunny
It didn't really seem like it was trying to be funny IN MY OPINION.
ah yes, stupid meme is more informative than the thought out review
As a full time AOTY user, the Aoty lore gets really deep. Trust me, you don’t want to research it
Hm? Teach me, I'm curious. I use aoty fairly often yet never heard of something like that.
True…
*shudders*
fr its scary
please tell me the lore
Ok last comment
What was wrong with that review? It seemed pretty good to me. Theyre talking about how unique George Clanton and his music is as somebody who fits within both the pop and vapor scenes. Like if I'm looking for an album to listen to and I read that it'll pique my interest to actually give the album a shot? Like not everything has to be a personal heartfelt kind of thing. Sometimes it's nice to just give reasons why an album is cool and unique and worth your time.
"No that is pretentious, real reviews are just memes, one-liners and quips." Yes, I understand that some reviews may be pretentious, but common. How bad is it that someone can concisely argue and give reasons why a certain work (be it a movie, book, or album) is worthy of appreciation? Reviewing an album is much more than giving an score. A simple score adds nothing to the discussion.
Because the video is ass and filled to brim with ad hominem and straw man’s to justify points(I’ve never used either site)
@@yeetodeleto1358yeah, the arguments in this video are pretty weak. (It's why I made so many comments) I feel like he already had a deep bias towards AOTY for whatever reason before making this video and then just created arguments to justify this personal bias despite them not really making very much sense.
@@bladonski It's definitely just prejudice against RYM for having those long reviews and not memes, and most of his arguments are nonsensical because of their fallacies.
It's just sad because I was hoping for a balanced review and was served trash.
@@yeetodeleto1358unfortunately that's just the state of youtube content. When anyone can upload something it means you've got to sift through mounds of trash to find something worth while.
The main reason why I stopped reviewing on AOTY was precisely because of the thing you're praising. There isn't a stigma around writing pointless, joke reviews on AOTY, so it's basically a Letterboxd wasteland of people, who have nothing to say and just clog up the section with boring, wannabe funny one-liners and I hate that. What you're calling "long-winded" and "pretentious" are well-constructed write-ups that discuss important context surrounding the creation of the albums and their place amongst their contemporaries' projects. Maybe there are some intriguing interpretations to notice that make you look at a piece from a different perspective, maybe there are literary gems that make Fantano look illiterate in comparison to the user in question, etc. What I'm saying is that serious reviews should be 500x more common than the average half-joke verbal diarrhea that plagues AOTY and that's why RYM will always have a better review section.
Sincerely, an active AOTY user.
I absolutely agree with you, while the guy makes fair points in his video, reviews on RYM are usually sooo much more interesting even if you have to sift through walls of puke sometimes. I'd rather scroll for an extra second than be met with tons of one-liner quips like I feel like I see on AOTY
Unfortunately, there is too much anti-intellectualism in those reviews. It's like reading a Twitter comment box than an actual review.
oh no, both of those sites are heavily plagued by unimportant non-reviews by people whose opinion on music don't matter at all. doesn't help they're predominantly populated by left-wing people, so the only intelligible reviews are those from at least a decade ago
"wannabe funny one liners"
THAT'S ME, I'M THAT GUY
i aint readin allat
I felt in love with aoty. I found it while watching Brad, so I'm happy you mentioned him!
I use aoty frequently, but mainly I love browsing around lists in order to find new albums.
I have to say, one thing that I also love is the fact that you can implement albums and artists that are missing! One time I looked all around my playlist and I added what I couldnt find on aoty.
It's a great video!!
I was introduced to AOTY thanks to Brad, and it was a gateway for me to truly start getting into music. I really love how user friendly the website is, and it's great for actually letting you build a profile and share your music tastes + favorite albums with other users.
AOTY is not without its flaws (bot attacks suck, and the whole "Brad/Fantano effect" debates get super tiresome really quickly), but despite that, the website has done wonders for introducing me to artists, albums, and genres I never would've discovered otherwise. And I feel the environment is friendlier and less pretentious than RYM.
If I never found AOTY (or Brad's channel), I probably would've fallen out of music at some point, or even worse, still be listening to the radio... And the mainstream radio is in a BAAAAAD state right now lmao. It's been that way for the past couple of years now...
Great video!
Same! Brad is the best. Been watching him for 6 years😅
@xanApfel 6 years? I've been watching him ever since he uploaded that Worst Songs of All Time video near the end of 2021 lol
@@ASCENSiON_ dude fr. I always loved his style. Watch his Loveless - My Bloody Valentine it’s his best old vid. He’s a nice break from all the constant chaos that is my life😂
@@xanApfelthe only good review he ever did, where he just shut up and enjoyed how good mbv is
i love how aoty always feels so much more like a social media platform, it makes having conversations and building connections with other users of the site way easier. it's something that always motivates me to listen to new stuff !
My two biggest points of contention here are that longer reviews are inherently pretentious (some are, but many do give in-depth perspectives) and that RYM is "more negative" just because of how your average user rates things (the algorithm also takes some influence as people without varied ratings remain with low weightings so most people have 2.5-4 as the bulk of their ratings).
That being said, I can understand how AOTY might be significantly more welcoming for people who are just "getting" into music. It's nowhere near as good of a database as RYM (which is itself not as thorough as Discogs), but it's only ehen you're deep into the culture that you rabbit hole side projects and studio musicians.
RYM has some pretty decent automatic recommendations (it has some recency bias, mind you), and sadly the similar album recs are locked behind paid accounts unless either it's in the current year's top X (don't remember the number) or someone sponsored the release page.
ok i think he’s SERIOUSLY overestimating these numbers wtf💀
Honestly, while I like some aspects of AOTY a lot more, I think I might still end up sticking with RYM just due to the sheer size of the database. Both cover the bigger albums, but there is some for me in finding that one Mathcore record no one’s rated and just going “eh, fuck it, I’ll give it a listen.”
as an avid rym user, i think you nailed it on the head. rym is a more personal experience for me. i like to catalog what i listen to and it's great at that. but i don't interact that much with the community there. i tried with the forums, but it's just very annoying to engage with. i don't use aoty, because i don't think i'd get much out of the community aspect. for people who actually want to discuss music and not just catalog, aoty is definitely the better option.
I concur. I feel the exact same way about the difference between rym and aoty. RYM is still probably better when it comes to cataloging my music and getting recommendations for new releases or expanding my taste past the descriptors that I already use. I think the names of the sites say it all - Rate YOUR music is personal and Album of the YEAR is very broad, thus invoking community discussions to decide the best albums, and I'm not for rankings and ratings tbh so I'll stick with rym just like you.
Yeah I feel the same way. No interest in the community aspect and rym's genre tags to find niche stuff in specific styles is unmatched. For what I'm using the website for, rym is the better option. Aoty looks decent but the stuff it does differently I'm not looking for.
Not to say I don't have issues with rym, like how slow site updates are and how many people feel a need to rate everything.
This really comes down to an ego thing I guess. Some people just can't handle going against the grain, or the reality of an average opinion. I couldn't care less that most of my favourite music on rym has like < 3.5 cause like, who cares? I like what I like I don't give a shit that some nerds think it's lame. Maybe that's the difference here. I use rym to catalogue the music I listen to because I listen to a lot of music and I like the fact that I can have this record of my opinions on stuff in the past so I can actually return to stuff. I like how rym is light weight and efficient for a website, and how thorough it's genres are so I can explore more niche music. Speaking of niche music, a lot of stuff I listen to has like < 50 ratings on rym so I'm not even sure they would be on aoty. I also like how you can export user data as CSV on rym so you can analyze the shit out of your own data and others as well.
Only a person like Liam Anthony would care about RYM scores 🤣🤣🤣.
I pretty much take RYM ratings with a grain of salt after reading the reviews for Coldplay's Something Just Like This. Nowadays I don't even bother going on RYM since I know there will be negative reviews for everything
Those catchy one-liner short reviews on AOTY remind me of Letterboxd reviews
The fact that you can't filter by country is a big deal breaker for me. My best finds on RYM were to go on a music trip from artists from specific countries that interest me.
Mhhh... how to put it in a nice way that doesn't come across as rude...
Rym's charts by countries are staight bullshit. The music that gets recommended by that site is so different to the music that people from said countries listen, it's basically night and day.
I'm from Mexico, and the fact that Natalia Lafourcade's most recent album is at the tip if that list feels wrong on many levels. It's a good album, don't get me wrong, but it's not the best representation of Mexican culture.
Hell, if it wasn't for fantano giving it a 9 it probably wouldn't be as popular as it is on rym. Her most well-known material here came about 5 to 10 years ago, not that many Mexican people actually listened to this record, it was a more underground release.
If you look at the rest of the top 40 albums from that list, there's cafe tacvba and caifanes (which, fair enough, it's the go to music for clinically online people but it is extremely popular here for a reason), Mon Laferte (who is actually from chile and only got the Mexican nationality fairly recently, tho she lived here for more than ten years so it's valid), a lot of indie rock that barely anyone has heard of. Meanwhile there's only one Luis Miguel album, only one José José album, only one Ska Punk (a vwry popular genre here, more than in the us) by maldita vecindad and no panteón rococo, no Vicente Fernandez, no Julieta Venegas, the "rock en tu idioma" when it's not underground indie rock it's basically a monopoly.
And worst of all, NOT A SINGLE MENTION OF JUAN GABRIEL, THE MOST CRITCALLY ACCLAIMED AND COMMERCIALLY SUCCESSFUL MAN IN MEXICAN HISTORY. AND HE'S BARELY THERE. The most successful Mexican composer and songwriter is not in the top 40, hell the first album of his that you'll find it on the 119th spot, barely in the 3rd page of the list.
And the same can be said for the rest of latin america or even the rest of the world, few of what gets recommended on rym actually represents what people hear outside the internet. If you thought it was bad for American and British music, imagine how bad it is for other cointries.
Now I'm not saying that aoty is flawless or that sorting by countries is an inherently bad idea. It's just, the way that it gets done on rym is legitimately bad. It's basically GENTRIFICATION OF MUSIC but instead of rich people, there's online nerds everywhere.
Something that aoty does do is tagging certain albums from certain places, most of these tags are done by people from those countries or from people that found cool music from around the world and want to share it with the rest of the internet. That way, what gets recommended is the popular, the acclaimed, the underground, and the lost and found. A little bit of everything fpr everyone. It's not perfect, aoty ia also guilty of the natalia lafourcade example i gave earlier and it also doesn't have as many albums as one would hope, so it definitely needs improvement, but overall it's a better system.
I hope this rant wasn't too tiring, but I needed thia to get out of my chest. My suggestion is, if you want to find music from other countries, it's better to make friends from around the world and ask them what they like and what everyone else in their communities like, or at the very list, find a radio station that fits your niche. All I'm saying is, a website that's notorious for resembling a monolithic state of mind shouldn't be the first place where you should try foreign music, there are better ways around it. Keep in mind, this is not a personal attack, this is just a suggestion and a rant.
Sincerely, and actual foreigner.
@@eliasmg9144Ok.
Sincerely, also a foreigner.
@@eliasmg9144Yawn.
Sincerely, also a foreigner.
@eliasmg9144 the rym charts aren't 'recommendations' per se, just a ranking of the top rated albums based on whatever genre, descriptor, language, etc you choose. And to your point about how some of the most popular musicians within a certain culture aren't represented in the top 40, the same can be said about the most popular American/English artists too. Drake and Taylor swift are two of the most popular artists in the world and garner high praise from music critics (mostly), but you won't find their albums in the top 500, let alone the top 40. Just because they're super popular doesn't mean that chronically online people like their music. I assume the same can be said about any country.
@@eliasmg9144 its for best albums, not most popular albums
I've been a regular RYM user for the last 5 years and honestly it's what got me into music to begin with. I like the pretentious reviews because it feels like people put effort into thinking about the music and giving comprehensive reasons about why they like it, and AOTY has plenty of that too! I think it comes down to personal preference and which format you like more, because honestly I don't think the two communities are as different as people make them out to be. I do agree though that AOTY has a better format for creating more personalized user pages.
I use RYM to discover new music even if I don´t engage with the community but one thing I discovered was that, on less known albums in RYM, there is a community of people who make fun of the RYM redditor mindset, specially in some comment sections and genres like harsh noise. That aspect has made my stay at RYM a lot better and it relieved the pressure of "having a bad music taste", now I just look up new stuff that I`m interested in, listen to it some times, rate it and get on with my life.
Also great video, I´ll check out some of my favorite albums on AOTY and see if I move there or alternate both websites, I just "got into music" half a year ago so I can make the move easily.
what do you mean by "rym redditor mindset" ?
@@khawlskater the stereotype of pretentious RYM user thats mentioned in the video, with the experimental hip hop, art rock and post rock albums.
Sorry if its not completely understandable, english is not my first language
@@majister9304 Don't forget the melancholic, anxious, cryptic and nihilistic descriptors.
RYM has:
- a way bigger database
- a way bigger userbase (more ratings for obscure stuff, sometimes stuff not even on AOTY yet)
- better weighted charts (so you can actually get what people are rating high instead of something one guy gave a 100)
- an incredible chart customization function
- many important genres missing from AOTY
- a very comprehensive release adding system (so no mistakes are made, like singles being listed as EPs just because the other singles are attached to it on streaming services, which happens WAY too often on AOTY)
- doesn't keep logging me out all the time
- why the hell does AOTY default to critic score?!?
- actual reviews instead of 5 word sentences
- actually lets you search from every genre on the chart page instead of just 23 of them (the rest of them you have to find an album with that genre and then click it, scroll down past the critic section and then click the user rated section (which is stupid)
- RYM isn't weird about what you can and can't do track ratings for. It just lets you do it for everything
- you telling me there have only been 15 dark ambient albums this decade? AND THE 3RD HIGHEST IS THE DUNE SOUNDTRACK?????
AOTY only succeeds at separating albums and singles on your profile instead of grouping them all into one section like RYM does. that's it. nothing else. (i use rym to rate albums and i use aoty to rate singles because i like to separate albums and singles)
What important genres are missing from aoty. Genuine question.
@dwahwuiadhwaiudwuhwaiudhwa1494 Here are a few: Math Pop, Winter Synth, Progressive Breaks, Dream Trance, Freakbeat, Mod, Skiffle, New Romantic, Hi-NRG, Italo Disco, Latin House, Trap Latino, Celtic New Age, Jersey Drill
"a way bigger userbase (more ratings for obscure stuff, sometimes stuff not even on AOTY yet)" I agree, there are many albums that become popular because of RYM. Examples of these include albums from artists such as Parannoul, Asia Menor, Kairon Irse, X-Cetra, Candelabro, Carousels, etc. Unfortunately a lot of people (like Liam Anthony) tend to limit themselves to the Top 100 and sees RYM as an "ultimate truth about music" rather than a big database with thousands of genres, albums, labels, artists and descriptors.
@@UTV001-dh3lg Don't forget Fishmans! Thank you for your reply, I really appreciate your agreement.
@@cherti I forgot Fishmans. I would also add Panchiko, Candy Claws, Khana Rung Thawi and AL-90.
CANDY CLAWS SPOTTED!!! Happy you enjoyed both albums. Besides that, great video!
Ok last last comment
That thing you talked about on aoty with like listening to people who listen to a lot of music applies to rym too. It's how I find a lot of my music. You just won't find it in the reviews section, you'll find it as lists. For example, I get a lot of music from this rym user aspiritualmoon who makes lists of very very very specific sounds or styles of music. I've found lots of albums I love from his lists. So this doesn't really act as a point against rym at all. You just have to learn how rym operates in that regard.
I really don't get how that slide review was pretentious. Maybe some phrases but overall it was very sweet.
finally, we found the type of guy that actually likes those unfunny one-liners more than actual detailed reviews
As a really big AOTY reviewer I really loved this video lol, glad for someone to put a full analysis on this debate! Great job on the video it was awesome, keep it up :3 💜
As a really big AOTY
yo holy shit it's thepurpleidiot of aoty fame
@@dwahwuiadhwaiudwuhwaiudhwa1494 user*
The goattt
@@maryfreegirl2029h
As someone who has been on both websites (MUCH more frequently on AOTY), I agree with nearly every point made on this, great video!
Wouldn’t compare rate your music scores in the same way tbh. I notice normally a 3.60 is closer to around an 80 on aoty and a 4.00, around a 90.
It's because a big part of rym ratings are like: "Album of the decade, no weak tracks, saved my life. 3.5/5 stars"
@@shitmeister2595 😭😭😭😭😭fr
@@shitmeister2595 and on aoty there are people who rate an album 74 and say it was disappointing and mid. i suppose it's partially because of the demographics of these websites, aoty has more younger people, rym has more oldheads who are there since the inception
thats why aoty is better. a number from 0 to 5 means literally nothing especially when the lowest is 0.5 for some reason. like wtf even is a 3
@@meraak1 3 is an equivalent to 6 out of 10, 0.5 is 1 out of 10, totally makes sense to me
Something I really like about AOTY is the community. Sure, it’s a little silly sometimes, but those trusted reviewers you mentioned seem like super awesome people. Like, THE Shadow the Hedgehog followed me on AOTY, like, how supportive is that? He has thousands of followers, one of the bigger people on the site, and he still just dropped a follow. Love that site
As a RYM user since 2017, and whose entire music taste was shaped by looking at RYM, the X/5 system seems harsh due to the "four point scale" mentality that we've come to expect. In reality, it kinda boils down to "above 3.0 good, below 3.0 bad".
Been using AOTY for nearly two years now and have met some of the coolest people I would’ve never met on a much more populated RYM. AOTY is the perfect type of niche where it’s small enough for everyone on the site to be a familiar face, yet big enough to have a strong community full of all types of users who listen to all types of music. I find AOTY to be more sociable (especially when they added the general chat), where as in RYM, it’s more of everyone defending for themselves. Personally, I feel as you have more importance, and more impact on AOTY due to it being smaller. Great video :]
it's not really that small anymore thanks to brad bringing on there thousands of bots
RYM is imo better because it is 100% community reviews. Though the reviews can be a bit pretentious on there I would still rather have that than letterboxd type one liners every other review as I feel AOTY has. I also enjoy the more critical ratings. It makes me question and rationalize and actively think as to why I enjoy the music I do despite it not always aligning with the general RYM consensus. Though I will say AOTY is way sleeker looking
But the User/Critic reviews/ratings are completely seperate, so you can ignore it if you don't like it, but it's there just in case you were interested in what publications thought of it.
@@rockstarrzz7171 yeah this
@@rockstarrzz7171 Fair point honestly. But even then i like how much data RYM has over its decades long existance, also the detailed genre sorting is great
@eliasmsv3156 yeah I will admit the genre sorting on RYM looks way better, it's a bit of a mess on AOTY and annoying to find highest rated/most popular albums of certain genre sometimes
straight off the bat: "40% of people are into music and of those 20% know what RYM is"
that's 640 million people
there are only about a million users on RYM, so it's not looking like a good start
Honestly with my experience on AOTY it's just such a fun place to check out music and has such a strong sense of community. The joy I have when I'm geeking out with someone over an album that has like less than 100 ratings or when a popular reviewer checks out an album I recommended is amazing.
i feel like this content is made specifically for me, good stuff thank you!
3:03 to be fair, if you see an album with a user score of at least 85 you can basically treat that as a 100. It's very rare to get that many users to collectively agree that something is higher than that.
I definitely prefer rym because it's 100% user score and also god the genre sorting is so good I get hard thinking of it. Tho I'm thinking of maybe occasionally using aoty. I don't care for reviews and never read them so that doesn't affect me. I just scroll see something that sparks my interests, and listen.
rym is way more useful but i much prefer logging my albums on aoty
I mean it’s not like the critic score really changes anything about the user score or anything like that, it’s just there, so I don’t really get that first point, second point is true though
Don't know about the first point, but agree with the second. I also would like to add that the comment box on RYM is... interesting to put it lightly. Especially on larger releases. Definitely recommend going through a few of them if you hate yourself btw, it is a very cathartic experience to say the least.
I mainly add the first point because if we can dock rym on pretentious reviews that you can easily ignore. Then imma dock aoty on critic reviews
"It feels pretty good when music you like is liked by everyone else"
*Me who is an AJR fan....
As a consistent AOTY user, looking at the popular reviews you showed in the background was a whole lot of hey! I know that guy! Great video lol.
personally I have always preffered rym to aoty by a wide margin, for a few reasons. personal preference is that i just like the look of rym far better, but also finding new music on rym is so easy and fun for me. sometimes i feel like rym is a music wikipedia because just like wikipedia i can get lost following links to new pages, there's always something new. i definitely think rym's older taste in the charts is probably just because of the older audience rym had until a couple years ago, but it has gotten much younger and at this point i'd say aoty and rym's active userbase is pretty similar. even the aoty top 10 user rated albums is starting to look almost just like rym's. honestly rym gets a lot of slack for basically a stereotype of its users that I dont think really exists too much anymore, i really do think it's far better than aoty. aoty is still a good website, just too critic focused for me. i will say neither website has a great rating system, i'd prefer a simple 1-10 scale
respect for the psychedelic porn crumpets and clanton picks
good vid as always !
Bro your so charismatic, you got talent
Much love and respect to your videos about rate your music and album of the year. There are a few things that I want to point out after these 2 videos.
I realized numerous times you have expressed your uncomfortable feelings about looking up a score on RYM. That's the same feeling people have when they watch a needle drop video. "Shit, this guy/these guys thought about an album that way, then that just means their opinions are "valid" ones or i don't know, there must be something wrong with me" I think it's important to not fall into this thought fallacy and see that at the end of the day it all comes down to taste and you have your own reasons to like or dislike an album just like these guys have their reasons.
What RYM or AOTY can possibly ultimately achieve is point towards an album that you might like based on what "what other people liked on average", just like iMDb.
Shout out to Brad, his videos introduced me (and a lot of people) to AOTY
I’ve always preferred AOTY to RateYourMusic due to the more modern look of its interface and its 100-point rating scale, which is useful if you like having a meticulous rating system.
I think one of the downsides to having a smaller userbase than RYM is that some obscure albums from decades past, which have at least a decent amount of ratings on RYM tend to have very few on AOTY. I have had to add some pages for fairly popular singles over the past few years too.
I was like who is this guy I like him and went to subscribe and realized I was already subscribed
How this man’s hair has evolved is beautiful
great video! i know you’ve already gotten a bunch of comments from popular aoty users already but i think this video really encapsulates that feeling of when you first join the website. granted there is an unfortunate underbelly to it all but i think that average users who don’t stray far beyond the website should have a much more enjoyable time than rym
DYNAMO AND BOCANADA MENTIONED 🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥 good taste my dude also yeah Aoty's feels so much comfier than RYM from the websites design to the community Aoty's literally music letterboxd lol
Literally music letterboxd, yep
literally music letterbocd
this hole video sounds like a skill issue to me
‘Tis
only on AOTY will you see an in-depth analysis of Greta Van Fleet and why they're one of the best bands of all time next to an one sentence review that's just "Her loss for those who are in retirement homes."
Glad that you don’t address any actual criticism of your content. Really wonderful just being another stagnant creator
the AOTY scoring system just makes me feel better about ratings than RYM as a great album dropping in the current year can and will get a 8 or even a 9.
If you translate the 5 star ratings to an out of 10 score then just flat out no albums reach a 9 (4.5) on RYM. Not even OK Computer or TPAB. And only about 150 albums score above an 8 (4.5)
It just feels awfully strange. AOTYs ability to give a high 70 or even an 80 to basically anything is really cool and I love the handful of projects ive found because of it (Squid for example). And even if I disagree with a score, I still feel better about the score being given on AOTY than I do on RYM.
If AOTY would just add a section to an artists page for live albums it would be a great site in my opinion.
If you translate the 5 star ratings to an out of 10 score then just flat out no albums reach a 9 (4.5) on RYM. Not even OK Computer or TPAB. And only about 150 albums score above an 8 (4
You can sort by an artist's live albums (and compilations, mixtapes, soundtracks etc.) on their page, and just using the filter on the left. If you want to see everything they've outputted (including singles) you can select it there, it's just that the default is LPs and EPs
@@rockstarrzz7171yeah I meant like live albums should be visible by default. My mistake in the wording.
if look at it from the prospective of the highest rated album being 4.3, you start to see that getting above 4 there is really impressive and rare, so even let's say 3.4-3.6 ratings say to me that these are likely some solid great albums. I even kinda think RYM has these ratings better spread across the board, on AOTY you have to do real bad to get even an average of 45 (which is just below medium), or to be AJR, Imagine Dragons, Chainsmokers, Nav, Meghan Trainor only then your average is around that 20 mark
@@EntrEsprit TBH, I am surprised people are really opinionated on the ratings aspect of RYM. I always felt like the design decision to keep it 5 stars was to keep it simple for the user to rate their own enjoyment of a piece of music. For example, what makes something a 67 as opposed to a 68 on AOTY for the user? But 3 to a 3.5 is a relatively bigger jump. So, while cataloging, instead of seeing them as marks or scores, I would much rather see them as buckets. 3-3.5 is good, 3.5-4 is great, 4-4.5 is amazing, 4.5-5 is damn near perfect and so on. And when you want to search for some music, they are ranked in a chart anyway, so the weighted average of ratings is kinda useless in that regard. If people are too concerned about what their favorite album is rated by others, and thus, like music discussions, AOTY might be the better place.
@@arkayv i agree with that, i always preferred simpler 10 rating system or 5 star system like on RYM. I don't know why some people need to rate the albums in specific numbers like 73, 78, 79. When i visit someone's page on AOTY i'd like to see which albums does the guy actually likes more or thinks are better, and with this overcomplicated system the line is more blurred because do you actually prefer an album you gave 83 than the album you gave 81 or this difference doesn't really represent anything
4:48 This part of the video is literally perfect. It shows why it doesn't exactly matter which one is better just which one you prefer and I agree with everything you said about both sites.
Hello man, I would like to share my opinion with you, I saw your last video about rym and now I just watched this one, and I think some things:
I think you take too seriously what people think about the majority of what the average score would be, you see yourself as attacked or as if you couldn't have your own opinion that the conclusion you reached in the previous video is not that, We all have to have our opinion but you moved to Aoty and now you feel like you feel more accepted or something like that just because the classification system is different and the communities are different, plus there are fewer people in Aoty. The reason why you feel that rym is uglier than aoty is because rym is from the 2000s while aoty is newer, I really agree with you but I think that using rym has a kind of feeling of nostalgia also for the old interface. That's just my opinion, everyone can think as they want, but some of the arguments you gave seriously seem quite silly.
I also think that you don't have the concept of "review" very much because I understand that you want to see funny comments on aoty or rym but the comments section is right there, there is no need to make a review a stupid comment. I think that due to the number of rym users and the variety of things you can do there, despite being a very old page, it meets all the needs and the only good thing I can see about aoty is that it is new and has almost no opinions.
genuinely some of the best content i've seen in a while, you have a really polished yet laid-back presentation style. love it
Thats the great thing about AOTY to see both perspectives between users and critic scores; where you can stand more with critics or users or both
finally a video about aoty
this is like imdb vs letterboxd
yea aoty is pretty good... FOR REVIEWS. For discovering music I always turn to rym first because their genre tags are really well organized. In aoty you get things like You Will Never Know Why by Sweet Trip being shoegaze???????
Just checked You Will Never Know Why and it is not shoegaze and it never seems to have been
@@dwahwuiadhwaiudwuhwaiudhwa1494 huh, I guess they changed it. It was there 2 days ago
I like the user friendly interface comparison section because that does actually bother me on rym but I didn't register that opinion in my mind until I heard you say it
i love AOTY, used it for over 4 years in comparison to 1 year on rym and it’s better in every way
I prefer RYM simply because it has a bigger database. Really obscure albums just don’t have anything mentioned on AOTY while they have at least a few reviews on RYM. Will check out AOTY again though.
did bro say milking a dead horse
9:02 thought We would not notice the Plat vs Zombies music
wrong, i HOPED you would notice the PvZ music.
The only reason I even know what RYM is is because I was a Radiohead fan. I watched some video about them and saw the website mentioned, so I immediately checked it out. I was happy to see OK Computer high up, a little shocked about In Rainbows, and then just disappointed at Kid A. It does not require a genius to be able to recognize the very obvious bias in RYM due to the people that use it.
It can be daunting to write reviews of albums sense it feels like there’s a ton of pressure to match the skill of the people who have rated 10,000+ albums on the website, but at the same time, you don’t want to seem like an idiot in your review especially if it’s an album you genuinely care about and want to write a good review for. It kind of creates a very toxic atmosphere in RYM even though there is little to none direct communication with anyone on there.
At the same time, I also dislike RYM since it feels a lot harder to pick an exact number 1-100 than to give a couple of stars to something. I don’t see a 10/10 album as perfect, I just see a 10/10 album as the highest possible level of enjoyment you can have in an album. If there’s an album where you really enjoy every single moment in it except for maybe a single lyric, that’s still a 10. It’s to the point where any minor issue(s) with the album is irrelevant compared to the rest of the quality material on it.
I just realized I went on a yap session and wrote my problems with RYM, AOTY, and the pressure of having to “rate” music better than I’ve ever written a review for an album. Maybe because there is absolutely 0 influence in my writing of this and I don’t feel any competition with the other commenters in this comment section.
In conclusion, the music community is becoming more and more toxic and basic every day. The people who LOVE Radiohead just because they get good reviews on the internet and the people who HATE Radiohead just because they get good reviews on the internet are not helping make the community any better. We’re all just nerds in the end of the day, what matters is if you’re actually passionate about your own opinions and don’t let others influence your opinions to be more positive or negative towards an album.
I love AOTY but I also tend to ignore the critics' reviews lmfao. I also find it weird that a trend on AOTY is people listening to genres they hate just so they can say the music sucks? Sometimes it's pretty good music, it's just not their cup of tea. Idk if that makes sense tho.
Also, the thing ab genres is totally fair lol. But tbh for me personally it doesn't bother me that much bc I tend to rate and review my music or things that have been reccomended to me instead of browsing through genres, but that's also cool :D
That is because the average music nerd hates music.
@@HyperBlackbird true
@@ghostf1903 Jokes aside, I feel like a lot of music nerds get satisfaction from rating things instead of enjoying the music or learning something about it.
Gaminggrandpa mentioned good video
The goattt
GAMING GRANDPA💯🔥🔥‼️‼️
Rym user and I don’t really look at the reviews anymore I just scroll to the comments. It’s usually small reviews or an argument either is entertaining. And I agree with you on the rym bias. They overrate indie rock so hard it’s gotta be the most highly rated genre on the site.
How is indie rock overrated on rym?
@@d0ubl3d the most popular of all time chart is filled to the brim with indie rock, every new indie rock album that comes out tops the yearly charts and has a high rating etc.
Album of the year also has a way better rating system. Being able to vote out of 100 is infinitely better than being able to vote out of 5 stars
Anglospheric problems, phh
in places outside of the anglosphere there isn't much info on rym and especially not aoty
so i end up adding a bunch of albums, credits and artists to the site - and they end up getting 15 ratings at best without any reviews
If I took a shot every time you said "to be honest," I'd be dead
Wait till he finds metal archives
As an AOTY user, it also incentivizes reviewers to grow their reader base and engage with the community. Whether that be by the shoutbox, or commenting.
It makes it easy and accessible to make yourself known on the site and thats lovely.
Slide is my favorite album of all time, goated. Makes me feel so warm and nostalgic.
Selected Ambient Works Vol II is so dope.
As someone that spent a lot of time on AOTY before exploring RYM I was kinda shocked how low scores were just generally, it was incredibly rare to find anything above a 4 which when translated to a 10 or a 100 scale is 8/10 or 80/100, like really? there's really so few albums that meet 8/10 quality on RYM? Something like ants from up there by BCNR has a 90 on AOTY, and only the equivalent of an 80 on RYM. Even other really highly regarded albums like TPAB on AOTY has a fucking 95 while on RYM it doesn't even crack 90. It really does seem like RYM users are much more critical. On more the site itself side of things you're absolutely right about genres and RYM, if I ever want to thoroughly explore a genre, especially chronologically, RYM is my go-to.
Great video and a very fun watch, makes me want to go browse reviews on albums I love and listen to new stuff :)
Ain't better if Origin of Symmetry has the same critic score as Kid A 🗿
as someone who understands that art is subjective, ive grown to not let other peoples opinions shame me into not likeing something since its my opinion
aoty has a significantly smaller database compared to rym iirc. if ur into a single super niche genre OR want to explore obscure/ultra independent music (ppl that only made 20 cassettes of their ambient album or smtn) then aoty is completely useless (if you're going to just stick to one, which makes sense to do). n all my friends that are hugely into music usually do both of these if not one so none of them can use aoty. i dont use aoty bc of this but im sure its community is better than rym bc ryms community is pretty terrrible
i dont like websites that endorse critics either, music critics are nearly always a plague on the artform
11:05 No offense but that review is deeply unfunny
i could not care less for rym reviews or forum posts. i just like the huge database of albums that rym has and that is what aoty lacks. i listen to lots of metal and aoty has several bands that i enjoy (dark millennium as an example) with a bunch of releases missing. I would switch in a heartbeat if aoty had good genre sorting, a better database, and overall a better ui since i kinda do prefer ryms ui a tiny bit more. i also do feel that the smaller userbase is a bit of a disadvantage as well. its harder to get a concise answer to whether or not an album is worth your time due to the lack of ratings for releases. but yeah good video keep it up.
I feel the same about RYM. I don't give a shit about the community and the Top 100. I only use the site to create my own custom charts and find more music.
Yes! I was waiting for this one ever since I watched your RYM video. Loved your commentary on this! Pretty much agreed with everything you said.
AOTY is SO MUCH more user-friendly and navigable, as well it being more of an actual community of people and bringing a lot more attention to smaller underground artists that are beloved to the site (e.g., Swans, Bjork, Danny Brown, etc.), that I would've NEVER discovered otherwise. Been on it since last March.
(a small thank you to Brad Taste in Music for that one)
I think aoty does work better for a more community driven thing, like following accounts and stuff. But Rate your music works 1000x better than aoty for music discovery beyond the surface level. Rate your music just has so many more ratings and if you're in to weird releases and listen to tons of music it works so much better for cataloguing. There are also very small communitys on rate your music full of people who are into really small niches, that recommend albums to each other. So while aoty is better for rating albums I think rym is way better for music discovery. Also the reason I think that ratings are so much higher on aoty is because on rym you're restricted to 10 different ratings. So if you want to rate an album a 74 it would be a 70 on rym.
Yeah the 5 star system is why I don't like rym
your first point falls pretty flat when you can press a single button to switch over to the user rated top list lol.
What really drew me to using AOTY was the numbered scores as opposed to stars on RYM. Essentially, on RYM you can only rate by 10’s. To me, there’s a significant difference between an album I’d rate a 70 and one I’d rate a 79
Also love the automatic Best of Year section on AOTY profiles
Is that KG&TLW live at red rocks '22???
i luv aoty i actually feel connected to people there, it’s way more social-media like than rym also i have the top review on icedancer by bladee, slipknot’s self-titled, and you’d prefer an astronaut by hum so im probably biased :3
The owner of AOTY just changed the minimum critic reviews to 5 instead of 2 upon watching this.
AOTY simply has the better interface and better sense of community. I find and follow a lot of people I like and have garnered a following. Also, I love scrolling down the reviews of a new album that is rating extremely well and seeing a popular user give it a RED score... just makes the review way more interesting than something like "2 stars."
I personally prefer RYM. I just like the way they sort genres a lot more and I really don't like the critic scores on AOTY. I am a nerd though so that might influence my opinion.
Also ceres and calypso is one of my favourites so 💯💯
Yo your one of the dopest on aoty
@@Thepre-fixfordeath ayy thank you!! ❤️❤️
I must be an anomaly. I didn’t learn about RYM until months after I started using AOTY (Funnily enough, from your video).
AOTY is music reviewing twitter RYM is music reviewing wikipedia
and I hate twitter
RAHHHHHHHHHHHHH GEORGE CLANTON MENTIONED WHAT THE FUCK IS BAD MUSIC