AnyDecentMusic?
AnyDecentMusic? is a website that collates album reviews from magazines, websites, and newspapers.[1] Primarily focused on popular music – covering rock, pop, electronic, dance, folk, country, roots, hip-hop, R&B, and rap – albums are adjudged by aggregating a consensus from several sources; reviews are sourced from more than 50 websites, magazines and newspapers. These publications are largely based in the US and UK, but some are also from Canada, Ireland and Australia.[2]
Type of site
History[edit]
AnyDecentMusic? was set up in 2008 by Ally Palmer and Terry Watson, the directors of PalmerWatson, a newspaper and magazine design consultancy. On creating the site: "Newspapers are our business (and we're passionate about them). Our other passion is music, and we've combined the two things."[3]
Similar sites[edit]
The site is similar to other review aggregator websites such as Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes in that it gathers reviews to assess critical acclaim. The site differs in the sense that it specializes in contemporary music in its chosen fields. Unlike similar music review aggregator sites—which compile reviews to assess critical acclaim—like Album of the Year, AnyDecentMusic? does not cover jazz or classical releases, or many world music albums, and tends to ignore most reissues, compilations and various artist collections.
The site also offers regular track recommendations, called "Today We Love", and regular playlists, with themes that appear sometimes to be topical and sometimes random. Although similar in principle to other review aggregator websites, AnyDecentMusic? puts some focus on its users finding new music through its features, with users able to formulate a personal "chart" through genre and time period search filters.
Palmer and Watson described their reasoning behind the site on their PalmerWatson.com website:
"We couldn't find a site that did what AnyDecentMusic? does, so we built one."[3]
Once an album or release has five reviews from different sources, it enters the current Recent Releases chart, where it remains for six weeks. It is this chart that forms the centerpiece of the site. In 2010, The Observer Sunday newspaper regularly featured the AnyDecentMusic? top 10 in its charts page.[5]
There is an "All-Time" Chart, but this covers only the duration of the website's existence, which was launched in 2009.
Since the site's beginning, the following albums have the highest aggregate rating:[6]
Lowest rating:
Highest Rated Album Per Year of Chart Existence:
Highest Ranked Album on the annual "ADM Poll of Polls" list: