What is the point of this blog/website/database?
As an individual who loves and appreciates music, music criticism and musicology, I believe this website can add value to existing discussions and analysis of contemporary rock, dance, hip-hop and popular music. The reviews and content on this website aim to provide a comprehensive database of relevant contemporary music (2025-) as well as providing an objective qualification of the level of that music. While there are countless music blogs on the internet, you will find that very few actually discuss the music itself. This is what I call the ‘interpretive’ mode of reviewing, in which the reviewer provides a subjective interpretation of the quality of the music filtered through the reviewer’s individual experience. While this may be a fun, relatable exercise, this approach does not contribute to a serious discussion on the artistic merits of rock, dance, hip-hop and popular music. This website aims to provide an actual critical analysis of contemporary music, drawing on nearly a centuries worth of criticism to provide an objective basis to grade music.
I reject unequivocally the premise that there is no good or bad music and that it is not possible to criticise music outside of your personal experience. It is not a credible argument to suggest for example that Psy’s Gangnam Style is of equivalent value to the Velvet Underground & Nico or to suggest that there is no way to make an objective argument that there is a distinction between these two forms of artistic expression. However, this raises the vital question of how we know this to be the case which I will discuss next.
Why does music criticism matter?
Music is an art (or at least, it should be). It may double as popular entertainment (as does the vast majority of artistic expression, from jazz to Shakespeare) but outside of its popularity and commercial potential, it has an artistic quality. It is vital that listeners and critics can both appreciate music as a non-commercial art form to improve understanding of music and to ensure the progress and prosperity of artistic expression. So music criticism should always aim to be objective and not subjective and in fact, the act of criticism itself posits the existence of a good or bad that exists beyond ones basic preference.
The first issue people usually take with the prior statement is that objectivity cannot be qualified. Where do these so-called objective values derive from? If there are certain values and principles that make some music superior to others, what are they and wouldn’t that make artistic expression largely redundant if there was a magic formula for good art? This is a valid objection to a narrow understanding of objectivity. For example, one could criticise a reviewing mode that only focused on western harmonic standards and evaluated music solely on numerical calculations of melody and harmony. Music is clearly much, much more than this. It is also evident that art critics are not always proven right and sometimes the artist and the audience can be more progressive than the tunnel-visioned tastemaker.
However, the version of objectivity that this website subscribes to is what I will call ‘Dworkinian objectivism’ after the legendary legal scholar. Dworkinian objectivity is a concept that suggests that moral and legal judgments are not purely subjective or based on convention, but are grounded in objective interpretations of existing and past practices. This means that truth can be found through a process of constructive interpretation. It is a view that challenges the idea of moral skepticism, arguing that while uncertainty exists over what the truth is, it doesn’t invalidate the possibility of objective truth.
Applying this standard to music criticism solves the objection that there is no organically-existing truths that shape our experience of music. As critics, we are like Dworkin’s judges, who strive for objectivity while acknowledging there may be a variety of ways that one might reach a different conclusion. Every artwork including LPs and EPs enter an already-existing tradition of genres, movements, innovations, and shared forms that inform our understanding and appreciation. The critic’s task is to interpret each new work within the evolving artistic narrative, showing how it fits and how it transforms aesthetic values. Like Hercules, the critic strives for coherence across the history of art, not personal taste. This doesn’t mean all critics will agree, only that critical reasoning has an objective standard of adequacy: The “right” critical judgment, then, is the one that a fully informed, reflective “Critic Hercules” would reach — one who knows all of art history, all aesthetic theory, and can integrate each work coherently into that story.
As flawed interpreters rather than Gods, we cannot say for sure that we are the ones that are right but by listening, interpreting and understanding as much as possible, we can get pretty close – and that might be enough. This website aims to reach the best possible interpretation of contemporary musical practice.
How does the rating scale work?
TBD in more detail
7/10+ – Highly significant
7/10 – Must listen
6/10 – Listen if you’re interested in the genre/artist
5/10 – Nothing special
4/10 – Insignificant
Lower than 4/10 – Gasp!