Album Rating: 4.5

There is a slight War on Drugs thing going on with the Rolling Blackouts as many critics pointed out so thought you'd at least like it to a 3.5 degree. To be fair to it I've effortlessly listened to it three or so times and there aren't too many recent releases that have managed that the last few months.



The wife also likes it a lot - some respite from all the other stuff I play!

Album Rating: 4.5

Christgau and Scaruffi I both like reading/rating checking and hold Scaruffi a tiny bit higher but they both have their good points (and blind spots)



Also if you enjoy Sleaford Mods you have to check the Idles - not that they're quite the same thing but it's an interesting comparison. That's another one stuck on a 3.5 that could feasibly get bumped.

robert christgau once dissed sput emeritus adam downer on his blog lol. never heard of scaruffi

nothing can top cokemachineglow at their heyday

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Doof I’d rate Christgau much better than Scaruffi if only because I’m not convinced Scaruffi actually likes music - also his writings aren’t that interesting, his scoring is more absurd.

Album Rating: 3.0

Critics are literally irrelevant to me & if Sput as a community is somewhat impartial, or at least less influenced by the bigger names in the business, then think I'll continue just using this place. Now that doesn't mean mindlessly checking every Sput-hype release, depends on your taste of course.

P.S. Not sure why I don't like this album as much as any of their previous heralded releases.

Album Rating: 4.5

luci, you have to take 5 minutes to check the scaruffi website, just the discog reviews



just search for 'Radiohead scaruffi' or whoever rather than trying to navigate around - you have been warned

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Honesty I think good music criticism is becoming a lost art - a controversial thing to say here of all places and as a person who doesn’t do much to change it myself - it seems most publications today are more interested in influencing/tastemaking or keeeping up with the zeitgeist than with actually enjoying/analyzing music. Sput’s probably on the better end though because we have minimal external influence and the writers here only write about wha they want to write about.

Album Rating: 4.5

critics are a necessary evil - I do find a lot through them still, less so now I spend a lot of time navigating around the RYM charts, but i'm sure even the dreadedPitchfork have pointed me in the right direction a few times this year. Uncut is decent, I like Paste too, I quite like the GorillavsBear end of year lists for a completely different slant on things, etc.

Album Rating: 3.0

yeah I like the seeming 'lack of agenda' here & if you know which users to ask then the recs are endless.

i briefly looked at his gybe reviews... let's peek at radiohead. he called kid a "electronica" I'm out

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Luci surely you’ve heard of Scaruffi before, if only for the Beatles meme?

Cokemachineglow had incredible music analysis, miss them.

What's the meme?

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

The thing with most critics today is that I’m not sure many of them actually know how to write about music.

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

The meme is the first sentence of this essay:

https://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html

Basically it’s the biggest musical “hot take” of all time

Album Rating: 4.5

'he called kid a "electronica" I'm out'





haha!

Not music

Album Rating: 5.0

"Honesty I think good music criticism is becoming a lost art - a controversial thing to say here of all places and as a person who doesn’t do much to change it myself - it seems most publications today are more interested in influencing/tastemaking or keeeping uonwith the zeitgeist than with actually enjoying/analyzing music. Sput’s probably on the better end though because we have minimal external influence and the writers here only write about wha they want to write about."

Mostly agree with this...I used to love Pitchfork and now they're become almost unbearable.

Album Rating: 4.5

Pitchfork now have an agenda about their previous agendas which in turn have an agenda with those agendas



Everything must be political is their motto now, I love my context as we all know, but all they do is try and concoct strange contexts to frame every piece of music in.



'What did Sgt Pepper's say about veganism?'

Album Rating: 5.0

haha you're not entirely wrong

there's definitely something to be said about sociopolitical influence in music, but they act like every album has something to say when that clearly isn't the case

Album Rating: 4.0

I’m not really interested in the next big release these days, my favourite albums every year are mostly ones that I’ve stumbled upon. expectation has a heavy weight.