About
Earbuddy is an independent music site. We write about whole records and the songs worth your next three minutes, and we tell you which ones are worth your evening.
Then and now
Earbuddy started in 2011 as an independent music blog and ran until around 2020, publishing thousands of reviews, premieres and year-end lists. After a few quiet years the domain changed hands, and in 2026 we relaunched it with the same idea it always had: opening your ears to good music.
The relaunched Earbuddy has no connection with the editors and writers who ran the original site, and we do not republish their work. Where we cover a record the old Earbuddy also covered, the new piece is written from scratch and links to the original on the Internet Archive.
Who writes here
Earbuddy is written by Elmo Phelge. Every review covers the whole record and the story behind it, and every fact in it, from credits to release dates, is checked before it goes up.
How we score
Every review gets a score from 0 to 10 in half points. The meter fills up to the score. A 9.0 or higher is Earmarked: a record we would press on a friend. We do not accept payment for reviews or scores.
What we cover
Indie, electronic, hip hop, folk and the stranger corners of pop. Reviews are for full records, Listen is for single tracks, and Lists are for the long view. No gossip, no tour news.
Send us music
Bands and labels can send records through the submission form. We go through everything that comes in. We can’t reply to everything.