The top 100 isn't a reflection of reality

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   Oh crap. What a pile of dog pooh this has turned into. If I had known this was going to be a whinefest for how hard done by Dream Theatre is on this site or a lame excuse to insult the people who enjoy coming here to rate, review and collaborate I honestly would not have bothered.  

I know what a Facebook "like" is you facetiously patronising person (hey, you started chucking the insults around, not me) - said I didn't know how to look them up, and you still haven't enlightened me on that issue - sure I can go to the band's facebook page and see the number of likes they have in total - that's not what you asked me to do and not what I asked you to demonstrate. How do I look up Facebook "likes" for all the artists represented in the Top 100? and how do I see the number of "likes" for each effin' album, including Dream Theatre's latest? Or their best (Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From A Memory)? Or their worse (no comment, I don't think any of their albums suck, though I will admit Octavarium bores me to tears, but that's not Dream Theatre's fault)? So how do I play Facebook Top Trumps?

Dream Theatre have sold over 12 million albums - 2.5 million "likes" is kind of what I'd expect (well, it's a bit light really, but never mind) ... Pink Floyd 18 million "likes" (yeah! I win Top Trumps!)... Yes - no official page ... Genesis - no official page ... Jethro Tull - no official page ... Rush - no official page .... It seems like Facebook doesn't quite reflect the demographic that is interested in Prog Archives and therefore not stunningly representative of reality, in reality. hmmm...16 million people "like" Guns'n'Roses - how did we miss them from our charts?

Facebook "likes" are a representation of what the people who have Facebook pages like, (it does what it says on the tin - see Ronseal reference below), including the 19 million people who "like" Pringles and the (same/different) 19 million people who "like" McDonald's - for crying out loud. One million more people feel the need to "like" reconstituted baked potato starch baked into a saddle shape than "like" Pink Floyd on a social networking site for the socially inept. (hey, that's our job!)

My heart weeps buckets for all those thousands of bands that people cannot be bothered to "like" at all, or haven't accumulated as many "like" as Ronseal "Does Exactly What It Says On The Tin" Wood Varnish. Please bring me some more freaking reality, I can always find 156,693 more on Facebook. More people like Stannah Stairlifts (your granny perhaps? mine's dead - my mum is dead too, and she never had stairs - no "upstairs" in a bungalow, [or basement come to that], so no need for stairlifts there, or Facebook, unless there is an Ouijabook) than like Discipline - looks like our reviewers don't know a decent Prog album from an electrically assisted stair-climbing aid for old folk, shame on them listening to Prog Rock instead of carrying their poor old grannies up stairs.

Facebook "likes" are binary - you like something or you don't - there is no quantitative measure - according to Facebook I "like" everything equally, and obviously I don't. Facebook just records that I a) saw the "like" link and b) liked it enough to click on it, and the tally of all those other people who also clicked on that "like" is merely the count of all the people who a) saw the "like" link and b) liked it enough to click on it - that's all - nothing more than that - it is not a measure of "goodness", it doesn't tell you what track three sounds like or whether the guitar solo is the sweetest you'll ever hear. All it says is that 2.5 million people who saw a link clicked it - that those people know what a Dream Theatre is and had the motivation to click a link- sure it's all nice and egalitarian - all those "likes" are equal - from the die-hard trufan whose owned every album, single and DVD and seen every tour through to the kid who saw the names scrawled in Sharpie his sister's boyfriend's school bag but hasn't actually heard them but wants to look cool and trendy to his 'friends' who also have Facebook who have "liked" those noisy metal bands like Slipknot and Linkin Park though he'd much rather listen to his mum's Adele CD in the car on the way to school but he got beaten up last time he said that. 

All those "likes" are equal and fair because they are not judgemental or biased by such unquantifiable fripperies as "they're a good band but is this album really any good?", or "Yeah, it's a good Metal album but it's not really a Prog album is it?"... And that last point is a salient point when it comes to this web site and why we are not facebook or rate-your-musac - I were to review For Lies I Sire (48,157 Farcebook "likes" for My Dying Bride - I'll call that a healthy result) here I'd give it 3-stars because it's good but not essential Prog Metal album, but on Metal Music Archives I'd give it 4-stars because it is an excellent Doom Metal album. You may choose to disagree with that philosophy and argue that if it is a 4-star album on MMA then it should be a 4-star album on the PA, and you are free to use your own philosophy when rating albums here, as does every one (in reality), but in all honesty I cannot rate an album on a Progressive Rock site without judging its "progressive" quality in comparison to other progressive metal albums. Facebooks non-judgemental, unbiased, egalitarianism doesn't tell you anything, it's not even a popularity contest because there is no distinction between "liking" Dream Theatre and "liking" Nightwish - your 'vote' is equal for both of them but the extra 300,000 people who "liked" Nightwish more does not reflect your actual views of both bands, or the public reality of whether one Roadrunner band is better than another Roadrunner band given that they are both promoted by Roadrunner equally (Slipknot for the Roadrunner Top Trumps win if you are playing along at home).

Facebook "Likes" are no more a reflection of reality than the number of telephone votes on Your-Country's Got Talent for some talentless blob of lard who sold the public a hard-luck story while wailing a tuneless off-key poorly dictioned lounge ballad is a reflection of talent.

Seriously Geoff, these aren't the droids you're looking for.  