C/D: Tiny Mix Tapes

Does anyone else even actually read this thing? It doesn't seem to come up in conversation as much as Pitchfork or Stylus. Barely ever, actually.

I used to read it occasionally, but yeah, the news section is so consistently unfunny that it makes you doubt the worth of the rest of the site. I think I followed it everyday for about a month, until I replaced it with Stylus (RIP).

Exactly.

With Stylus gone, the only "big" music site left is Pitchfork, which serves its purpose, but it ain't no Stylus. Unfortunately, there are other zines around, like Cokemachine Glow, but they seem largely horrendous.

*the quality of them is horrendous

don't they actually have a pretty strong, positive bias for the u.s. pacific northwest indie scene? i thought they did a couple of years ago, when i used to try to read that shit. dud as hell, for that alone.

Unfortunately, there are other zines around, like Cokemachine Glow, but they seem largely horrendous.

Increasingly offtopic, I guess, but I like Popmatters (mostly their features, less so their reviews).

everyone's talking about stylus closing up. that was a very good and useful site, and i'm sad to see it go. but, i know that i can get by just fine with pitchfork, amg, nme online, ilm, and just investigating artists a bit on my own.

Daniel, I agree. PopMatters has had some fantastic features. (There's a PM thread here.)

One of my favorites was the oral history of the Elephant 6 Collective article they did a while back.

But yeah, TMT is increasingly dud except for some of their reviews which I think can me more OTM than some of the more mainstream publications on occasion.

Cokemachine Glow

I've been trying to give this site a chance lately. When you're in the mood to read a really long piece on a specific new album, it can fill the need. The problem is that the writers appear to have taken a lot of inspiration from the Pitchfork style circa 2001 when there would be dozens of introduction paragraphs, and then a little blurb about the music at the end. Also, when you finally do reach the end of a long piece like that, it never feels rewarding, more like you just really wasted 10 minutes of your life (again).

Their Retconning section can be pretty interesting though, which is a series of articles intended to be rough guides to various genres like post-punk, 70's folk, free jazz, etc.

Andi: As I've been saying on the Stylus thread, a lot of my (and others', presumably) sadness over its closing is due to the fact that the writing there was so good, varied, and critical.

In my opinion: Pitchfork is excellent for its reviews, interviews, and occasionally its features. AMG is a great reference tool. And ILM is the best place I've found on the internet for discussion. But none of these places really have the breadth of critical pieces that Stylus has/had. Here, you can get a lot of different opinions, which is essential, but there aren't pieces here from one person's point of view that explore a particular angle on something in depth as often as not. I think all of these sites are useful for different reasons, and Stylus's closing will leave a hole in online music discourse.

Z S: I haven't read the Retconning section, although I clicked on that link and it looks interesting so I'll spend some time later today going through the archives.

My problem, like yours, is with the reviews. A lot of the time they seem to give critically lauded albums a lower score than most of the other sites just to establish themselves as some sort of "corrective" to critical hyperbole. Plus, some of the writing there is absolutely abysmal.

See their review of LCD Soundsystem's Sound of Silver, which gets a 56% rating from the critic and a 65% "combined rating." Insane.

I like TMT just fine; I enjoy the DeLorean and Eureka! sections more often than not, which alone makes it classic.

As for Stylus, I'll certainly miss it -- I usually thought the new album reviews were horrible (i.e., off the mark more often than not), but I really enjoyed a lot of the special features like Playing God, On Second Thought, Seconds, Staff Top 10, On First Listen, etc.

Though, I've been reading Stylus since 2003, and inconsistently, which means at some point I'll go through the archives and read some of the stuff I've missed.

TMT is down due to tech problems? Bummer.

https://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/dis-fig-purge

i don't know if this is old for them, but for the past while i've really noticed that they let their reviewers really go out there - this being an extreme example. don't know what i think about the results but in an era where practically every review-oriented music site is in lockstep with the commerce cycle it's nice that someone is still trying something else.

Good news! The twentysomethings who are incapable of writing coherent music blurbs for newsweeklies have some poetry they'd like you to see

TMT's news/promo stories are often written with a tongue-in-cheek excitement/reverence that I find endearing, and the site displays many pretty cassettes in its Chocolate Grinder posts. I like TMT enough that I whitelisted it for advertising, though those video ads for Lowe's in the lower right corner are really distracting (and seem rather incongruous).

Now that the Chocolate Grinder has ceased grinding, where does one go to hear about extremely limited edition tapes by low-profile artists with pretty packaging?

Tabs Out

rip tmt
loved that site

end of decade write ups ruled