Sputnikmusic (abbreviated as Sputnik) is a

music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

website A website (also written as a web site) is any web page whose content is identified by a common domain name and is published on at least one web server. Websites are typically dedicated to a particular topic or purpose, such as news, educatio ...

that publishes music reviews and news entries. The site hosts both professional and amateur content, covering

metal A metal () is a material that, when polished or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, electricity and thermal conductivity, heat relatively well. These properties are all associated wit ...

, punk, indie, rock,

hip-hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hi ...

, pop and other styles. Its reviews are used by the review aggregate

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

Reception

incorporates Sputnikmusic's staff reviews into its review aggregate ratings. The site was cited by ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' and Neil Daniels. Michael Miller wrote that "you're likely to fine a wide variety of opinions in the site". A Master's thesis utilized Sputnikmusic's music database for its research, due to its "focus on non-mainstream artists" and its "encompassing database". The ethnomusicologist Jorge Mercado Méndez references Sputnikmusic as an 'acclaimed' review source adjacent to ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork or hay fork is an agricultural tool used to pitch loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. It has a long handle and usually two to five thin tines designed to efficiently move such materials. The term is also applie ...

'', while musicologist Giuseppe Catani cites Sputnikmusic's Alex Robertson alongside the ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

''.

Stratification and rating systems

On Sputnikmusic, there are four levels of reviewers, which differentiate professional and amateur content: *Staff Reviewers: these are the editors who contribute to the professional section by producing analyses and reviews. Their reviews are referenced on

. *Contributors: These writers are recognized by the current Staff members as good enough writers to be featured. Nevertheless, they are not taken into account by

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

. *Emeritus: status given to former Staff members who no longer contribute to the site. Their reviews are considered professional. *User: this category includes all other people who are not listed at a higher level. They can add new reviews, artists and albums to the database, as well as edit and submit reviews or lists. The Sputnikmusic notation system is based on a 5-point system, starting at and ending at in steps. Each note is associated with a word, ranging from "Awful" for to "Classic" for . Staff members are also allowed to score in steps. Each album analysis shows the score given by the reviewer, but also the score given by the other reviewers on an associated page where an

average In colloquial, ordinary language, an average is a single number or value that best represents a set of data. The type of average taken as most typically representative of a list of numbers is the arithmetic mean the sum of the numbers divided by ...

is calculated from all the scores. A bar chart also shows the number of ratings each score has received for each album.

Album of the Year

References

{{Reflist Internet properties established in 2005 Music websites