1 star for Devin Townsend - Terria?

I have already said all I need to say about this type of spiteful manipulation in the synchestra thread...

I wonder if greenback knows the baldies- maybe greenback is even a reincarnation of baldj, who came down pretty heavily on Devin a while back. If this is not the case, I wonder whether greenback is female, as the fairer gender seems to find his music quite obnoxious, for some strange, unknown reason.

I do find it ironic that the previous basher of Devin (baldj) was heavily into gaia and there is a song called gaia on synchestra. Could it be possible that Devin reads these threads and this song came about because of that? Nope, I guess not...

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ allow me to quote one of your posts from another thread: greenback wrote: unfortunately, any top 100 algorithm is not perfect for everybody, because we all find at least 1 irrelevant album in the list, becasue tastes are VERY different. maybe the best thing to do would be to only consider the collaborators' ratings. on the other hand, we can avoid abominations like devin townsend - terria to reach the top by rating low those hyper-overrated albums. i have just received a private e-mail from fishymonkey saying that by my low rating, i lowered the 4.60 average rating of Terria! i said something like "how can you be reliable when you say close to the edge is worse than townsend's terria!"  anyway, i do not rate an overrated album low because i want it to lower it in the top list: i rate it low because i want to inform the people that this album is BAD! Hm, that seems to be a little contradictory to me ... but as I said above, you're free to rate it 1 star.

on the other hand, we can avoid abominations like devin townsend - terria to reach the top by rating low those hyper-overrated albums

yes, all of us haters, we CAN, but we MAY not, because it would be biased!

i do not rate an overrated album low because i want it to lower it in the top list:

it means: "i do not waste my time to rate albums 1 star just because i consider them too high in the top charts!"

 

 

 

Edited by greenback

MikeEnRegalia wrote: [QUOTE=greenback] Ok ... so if these 1(.499999) stars reflect your true opinion about the album, why did you say in the other thread that another motivation was to get the album down in the chart? you misunderstood my posts: i never wanted to get Terria down the chart! i just rate every album that I listen, that's it! I can cope with different opinions. And please, go ahead with these reviews. People can read my Terria review and then yours, and then freely choose which one is more helpful. i do not have many 1 star reviews: about 10 out of 500! i almost know them by heart: ok computer, trout mask replica, neu 2, terria, the 2 first tangerine dream albums... I consider my negative review VERY useful, since VERY respected members here like HIBOU may be warned about a potentially bad album. (we have mostly the same tastes!)

 

BaldJean wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: I think that rating Devin Townsend - Terria 1 star is ridiculous ... am I alone on this? Edit: I just used this particular album as an example ... there are many other albums that have average ratings of more than 4.50 which receive 1 star reviews. it is quite accurate. nothing interesting on this album. and this is NOT because I'm not really a fan of prog metal (I have heard other prog metal that I rather enjoy) but because I really think it is boring and uninteresting and, most of all, NOT really prog. but we have had this debate before. as to other albums with average ratings of 4.5 + and 1 star reviews: de gustibus non est disputandum P.S.: the one star rating was not from me

I wouldn't mind if you made a 1 star review of Terria - as you said, de gustibus non est disputandum. But I think that it is perfectly ok to discuss the reasoning of controversial reviews, or the motivation of the reviewer - at least if he/she "opens that door" by talking about it in the forum. I admit that it's difficult to discuss reviews without getting personal ... but I decided to talk about this particular review because IMO it is particularly controversial and it was made by a special collaborator. Of course there are also other albums which seem to "call for" such controversial reviews ... Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica for example.

The consequence of such reviews is that the guidelines have no meaning anymore. Fanboys are allowed to rate any album 5 stars, people who simply don't like an album are free to rate it 1 star, even when it's obvious that most people who like the genre think of it as a masterpiece or at least a good album. If Terria (or Trout Mask Replica) is rated 1 star by someone, how could that person review Physicist (Safe As Milk) ... -1 stars? There simply is no consistency.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: I think that rating Devin Townsend - Terria 1 star is ridiculous ... am I alone on this? Edit: I just used this particular album as an example ... there are many other albums that have average ratings of more than 4.50 which receive 1 star reviews.

it is quite accurate. nothing interesting on this album. and this is NOT because I'm not really a fan of prog metal (I have heard other prog metal that I rather enjoy) but because I really think it is boring and uninteresting and, most of all, NOT really prog. but we have had this debate before.

as to other albums with average ratings of 4.5 + and 1 star reviews: de gustibus non est disputandum

P.S.: the one star rating was not from me

Edited by BaldJean

WiguJimbo wrote: greenback wrote: and let me warn you: this low rating from me will probably happen with the band magyar posse! Just out of curiosity, you actually went and bought an album by Magyar Posse, after hearing the samples that you thought were pure crap...?  (this happened in the Collab Zone, when we were voting for their inclusion) If so, feel free to review their albums, but it strikes me a bit weird, that someone would purposely buy an album he knows he's going to dislike... But maybe that's just me.

I did that with Therion - Vovin. Bought it on Ebay for 7 EUR, listened to it about 5 times during about 3 weeks, and then sold it on Ebay - for 5 EUR I think.

Ridiculous, isn't it?

greenback wrote: fandango wrote: I can't enter your poll Mike, but it has aroused my interest.  Terria has been near the top of my 'to be listened to' list, because I know that so many people like it.  This review (which I read as soon as it was posted) now has me even more intrigued. On a personal level, my system may be flawed, but if I really don't like a group, I wouldn't review an album by them, because I would just end up offending people unnecessarily. I also think that no stars should be scrapped altogether, and 1star should be reserved for extremely poor efforts only, as it's quite disrespectful to the artist... first of all, i voted on this poll: i voted: "1 star is a little too low"; that's why I voted 1.5 stars! Terria is not completely crap (0.5 stars), but it is far below any mediocre progressive record rated at 2.5 stars, for example. I carefully studied the situation before getting a 1.5 star, believe me! i noticed that most of the reviewers rated it 5 stars. really true masterpieces of prog metal are albums like symphony x' s wings of tragedy. , dream theater's images & words, shadow gallery's tyranny... but I'm sorry to say Townsend does not work at all for me. some collaborators will have to be able to cope with different opinions; if not, then we should call it fanatism that can lead to unnecessary tension among the community. there are many controversial ratings here like guys who rate collage - moonshine 1 star, or triumvirat - spartacus 1 star, but i think we have to go beyond those things: this is what we call maturity: live and let live! and let me warn you: this low rating from me will probably happen with the band magyar posse!

please don't get me wrong, Greenback, I'm not questioning your integrity, your right to a point of view or your ability as a reviewer....  I also understand how you feel about 'Terria'...sometimes, an album just doesn't work for you.... you feel its the sort of thing you probably should like, but it leaves you absolutely cold, and perhaps even gets under your skin.  That's fine, it happens to us all every once in a while, and because its music, sometimes its difficult to put into words why you find something quite as awful as you do.

It's quite evident however that Terria has a substantial following in this forum, so if I was in your shoes, I would question whether I was the best person to write the review for that particular album... I guess you have to balance out freedom of speech with unpopularity..

At the risk of sounding boring, a similar sitaution happened to me with Ayreon's 'Universal Migrator', which left me completely cold.  It is possibly the only album I have heard since joining the forum which I would give the dreaded 1* to, but I don't see the point of causing (any more) offense over the issue...I just feel that any review I would do would be counter-productive.

Plus the review doesn't seem to say really very much why greenback doesn't like the album.

This music describes the best what is a monolithic electric guitar! I have never heard a more monolithic electric rhythmic guitar than on this record: that's completely ridiculous! This brutal guitar is so distorted and polluted with tons of useless effects that it takes all the available room! As if it was not enough, the musician seems to take a huge pleasure to exaggeratedly sustain each note, a painful torment for the ears! The rhythmic guitar is COMPLETELY unmelodious. The lead vocals are just simply too angry and aggressive for me. When the lead vocals are more mellow, they amazingly remind me David Gilmour and James LaBrie. There are some good acoustic guitar parts. There are some unconvincing TV or radio sounds, a much worse copy of Roger Waters' effects: they seem too coarsely produced. You can hear some whales-like sounds. There are some rare good passages, so that, globally, this record is not worth a complete listen. The only track that retained more my attention is "Deep peace", starting with an imitation of David Gilmour's voice; an Oldfield-esque guitar solo then begins, followed by an Hillage-esque one, featuring his spacy ambience from the "Green" album; then, it changes to a VERY modest & much slower attempt to emulate the symphonic Yngwie Malmsteen himself. This VERY rebel music is probably perfect for the young people who like disturbing moods.

The review in question.

Whatever. I initially PMed greenback confused and kinda shocked as well, but primarily because I thought he was a prog reviewer that had suddenly changed his review from a four or five to a one, since I felt like his review complained about pretty trivial things. Still, an opinion is just an opinion. I should know, I rated SEBTP and CttE 3 stars each!

Who would ever give Devin Townsend an One?

I can't enter your poll Mike, but it has aroused my interest. 

Terria has been near the top of my 'to be listened to' list, because I know that so many people like it.  This review (which I read as soon as it was posted) now has me even more intrigued.

On a personal level, my system may be flawed, but if I really don't like a group, I wouldn't review an album by them, because I would just end up offending people unnecessarily.

I also think that no stars should be scrapped altogether, and 1star should be reserved for extremely poor efforts only, as it's quite disrespectful to the artist...