Musebin: The future of music reviews?

For those who have complained that some of the Pop & Hiss reviews are too long, today is your lucky day. Musebin, a site dedicated solely to tiny album reviews, is up and running.

With a 140-character limit, that means the above two sentences would be too long. The user-driven site allows for only a sentence or two, paring down music reviews to a Twitter or Facebook status update.

For instance, here's a snapshot of three reviews of Kanye West's "808s and Heartbreak:"

Although the launch of such a site might send fear into the hearts of a music blog with seven contributors, anything that promotes discussion of new music is welcome. Musebin certainly has that promise. At its best, it's a launching pad for users to find out more information. At its worst, Musebin's mini-reviews simply add to the clutter that the site aims to cut through -- there's no need for 25 characters on mid-'90s Weezer albums, after all.

Those who sign up can post reviews as well as sample songs via a music player. They'll also likely face a little social networking crisis, having to decide whether a review is better fit for Twitter, a Facebook status update or Musebin, among others.

Wired's Epicenter has more on Musebin.

--Todd Martens

Screenshot: musebin.com

Comments

[scott pgwp]

I'm working on launching www.suxrulz.com, which has a one-word limit. Sux or Rulz. That should cut through the clutter just fine.

I have another idea for a website: www.heardofithaventheardit.com. Same theory but you're only allowed to comment on albums you haven't heard. "heard it sux." "heard it rulz." That is the future.

[Adam]

You can also clip reviews from other publications and submit them to Musebin. If there's a particularly good 1-liner hiding somewhere in an LA Times review (and I'm sure there are many), you should definitely submit them. All the top 1-liners from each source are aggregated on their own page. For example... http://musebin.com/source/avclub or http://musebin.com/source/pitchfork

[jcrowe]

Good Lord. The value of critics and criticism is to stimulate thinking and discussion. It's really tough to have a discussion regarding a critique that's 140-characters long.

::sigh::

Oh, and 808s and Heartbreaks rocked. I don't care what anyone says.