quote:

Originally posted by paulversuspaul RA literally has almost no value left with this. Does anyone actually read those god awful reviews ? I only would read the comments. You could see this change coming though as more and more the readership had basically stopped listening to the reviewers and were calling them out. So first the DJ poll and now this. Its now a giant marketing site for "underground house and techno". yeah real underground my ass.

I've only ever really used RA for its events listings, although some of their long-form articles and interviews are good pieces of journalism. The reviews themselves are generally dogshit, trying as hard as possible to imitate that Pitchfork-centred "blogosphere" editorial voice that - in my opinion - is about seven years out of date now. And as mentioned above, I never really thought much of the comments as a rule. A few good posts but a whole lot of moronic squabbling. Rarely much sustained cut-and-thrust between well-reasoning contrasting points.

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Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

I miss the IMDB message boards

Of course the RA comments weren't some beacon of discourse but they were still miles ahead of the shithole that is social media.

I don't think the problem with the RA reviews is that they imitate Pitchfork's style, they stopped doing that years ago. The problem is rather that most of them don't say much of anything, one or two paragraphs that describe the music and no aesthetics judgements or personal opinions apart from "it's ok I guess". Not exactly the most inspiring music writing. Pitchfork's writing style can be annoying and patronizing but at least their reviews are longer than five sentences and bring forth some tangible opinions. This is the typical RA review, I might as well have not read it because I've gained absolutely nothing from reading it. PK reviews might be stupid but at least I can disagree with them!

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June 2018 mix

Last edited by Woony on Jan-04-2019 at 13:58

The single reviews are like that, but I was referring more to the album/mix comp write-ups. And the styles are still very similar. I was reading their's and Pitchfork's reviews of a couple of recent DJ Kicks comps and you could have swapped the two reviews around and nobody would notice each was from the wrong publication. There's also their obsession with end of year lists and the editorial tone these take.

The thing is, Pitchfork is a different readership and a different kind of music. Their style pretty much suits the kind of music and the kind of listener they write for. RA became big in the late 00s when the blogosphere was in the ascendency, and dance music then was much more "hipsterised", with that kind of listener providing a lot of record sales. In 2009 it made more sense to be the Pitchfork of club music.

Now, it feels like the scene is much bigger and much druggier again, much more about unashamed club music. And RA's editorial style just doesn't match the way real clubbers talk about this music. Any surprise that the readers were increasingly turning against the editorial and getting modded for their trouble?

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

I mainly look at the single reviews.

They've also been pushing a lot of music & scenes really hard that 95% of their readership has absolutely no interest in (PC music, really experimental stuff, queer "club" music or whatever it's called, RnB, outer-european & non electronic music etc.). I think some of their staff even holds contempt for straight techno & house at this point. Looking at the stuff they review, you wouldn't really know what's actually popular on the dancefloors currently.

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June 2018 mix

Definitely. Their contempt for melodic dance music is even clearer. Anything with any kind of melodic emphasis gets labelled "cheesy" and kept below the 3.5 mark. Again, it's totally out of step with the fact that dance music is the most melodic it's been, across practically every genre, for 15 years.

___________________
Mixes:
> Maximum Elevation [Progressive House]
> DI.FM 26th Anniversary Guest Mix [Progressive House]
> Live @ Dance:Love:Hub London, 11.10.2025
> Higher Peaks [Progressive House]
> Dance:Love:Hub Afterparty (The Return) 23.11.24

Like these sets? Come see me play live at Kibosh in Manchester: https://www.instagram.com/kibosh.mcr/

it's all about the melodies bro

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201

I've been a regular on the RA comments section for a decade. One-hundred percent disagree with their decision

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J It's a culture war that has ravaged practically every media outlet there is: the endless extremist battle between conservative bigotry and over-compensating leftist identity politics.

quote:

Originally posted by Woony I mean, they were very blunt in their statement: Our readership is female, queer, PoC etc., in our comments there are too many white dudes. I think it's interesting how identity demographics have now become a kind of social capital. You often hear people talk about how party X has more of identity X and thus is more woke and a better / more interesting party than white dude party X.

quote:

Originally posted by paulversuspaul I find these statements so funny. I know tons of females, queer, and poc in the scene and what they almost all have in common is that none of them read RA. Meanwhile every white dude I know reads RA. lol. So lets pretend that is not the case by getting rid of the comments section and we can all pretend that the scene isn't really white. When I first started in the scene over 20 years ago, it was way more black and brown and gay than it is now. I wish it wasn't but thats life. The secret got out and white suburban guys are into it now. and if it wasn't for those suburban white guys and their money, neither RA nor most of the underground artists they champion wouldn't be able to make a living doing this. RA has made tons of money of those white dudes and now they are embarrassed and want to pretend like their readership is made up the type of people who first went to a rave in 87 and not the type who now buys their tickets.

quote:

Originally posted by Woony They've also been pushing a lot of music & scenes really hard that 95% of their readership has absolutely no interest in (PC music, really experimental stuff, queer "club" music or whatever it's called, RnB, outer-european & non electronic music etc.). I think some of their staff even holds contempt for straight techno & house at this point. Looking at the stuff they review, you wouldn't really know what's actually popular on the dancefloors currently.

quote:

Originally posted by SYSTEM-J Their contempt for melodic dance music is even clearer. Anything with any kind of melodic emphasis gets labelled "cheesy" and kept below the 3.5 mark. Again, it's totally out of step with the fact that dance music is the most melodic it's been, across practically every genre, for 15 years.

This type of concern with a websites 'comments culture' only seems to arise when their site has achieved enough public visibility so as to be dragged on social media, and I'm sure that's what happened here. It also seems to be the case with Digitally Imported blew up their forums a few years back, or when Break.com disabled their comments section due to the incessant racism and sexism (before the site itself went defunct). RA and all these other places have a business to run, and providing an open forum for discussion where the above maladies can run rampant just isn't worth letting it negatively affect your business.

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He traded sands for skins, skins for gold, gold for life. In the end, he traded life for sand. Afari, Tales