1 star for Devin Townsend - Terria?

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!"

One star, ridiculous? Why? Greenback supported his rating well with a detailed review.

I, myself, was blown away last year when I heard the two Townsend streams on PA (War and Hide Nowhere): not particularly my style but I liked what I heard. I had also read rave reviews about Townsend’s albums in general, so eventually I went and bought Terria. I wish Greenback had written his review then, as I trust his judgment completely when it comes to prog.

I know exactly what he means when he writes “the guitar is distorted and polluted with tons of useless effects”. After hearing the album, I too was asking myself why the constant drone in the background? Even the supposedly quiet ballads are drowned in a wall of noise (the layered recordings don’t do a thing for me). If, despite the screaming and the aural saturation, you find that  Mountain, Earth Day or Canada sound peaceful, I’ll grant your ears are more forgiving than mine. A question of taste, no doubt, as many of you genuinely enjoy the album. But try as I may, I still don’t get the buzz.

One star isn’t ridiculous if your rating is sincere. And I tip my hat to Greenback: it takes a lot of guts to say what you think, knowing you’ll spark off some fireworks .

P.S. I do belong to what Cobb calls “the fairer gender” .

I'm not gonna say anything new here, but I think it needs to be reminded...

I'm wary of 1- and 5-star reviews. They tend to review things that are not there. 1-star reviews tend to review 'good' melodies that are not there, dissonance that is not there, production styles that are not there, vocal styles that are not there etc. etc. etc. 5-star reviews tend to review The Second Coming, Divine Rapture, Nirvana (no jokes please), Winning a Million Dollars and Having Great Sex (not there on the album, I mean) 

I think a review should be about things that are there. The key question here is - are these things really what they aspire to be? If so, then I think the final rating should be higher rather than lower. The only exception I can think of here is when an album was written with the sole intention of attacking the top of the charts. Even if it really has such potential, it should be considered crap, IMO, since it doesn't really express anything.

But even if an album does fulfill its own promise, we still have to judge it according to a higher criterion. I think that here in PA these criteria should be the highest standards set by symphonic, kraut, prog metal and other prog sub-genres. What is the relation between the standards the album set itself and the ones set by the sub-genre it belongs to? Does the album only repeat what was said before? Does it add anything? Does it put the sub-genre masterpieces in a different light? On a more radical note, does it question them successfully? In other words, what does the album 'do' to the sub-genre? If it doesn't do anything or even does damage to it (careful here, it's very easy to let our prejudices get in the way), then the rating should be lower rather than higher. However, if it adds a substantial amount or sets a successful alternative, the rating should be higher rather than lower. Of course the problem of limited room for movement with only 5 stars arises here. Damn it, this should be changed. AFAIK the German prog site Babyblaue Seiten started off with 10 points for the reviews, and now they've expanded it to 15!!! I think this is a good indication of how difficult it is to equate opinions to numbers fairly.

Coming back to extreme reviews... I think people who are extremely emotional (negatively or positively) about certain albums simply shouldn't review them, since it seems impossible for them to review the albums with any kind of objectivity. They won't be even able to focus on the album properly - the extremely negative reviewers will find it painful to listen to them, the extremely positive ones will find it painful to even consider rating the album lower than 5. IMO this is why the Inappropriate Reviews thread is so long. 

Manunkind wrote: Of course the problem of limited room for movement with only 5 stars arises here. Damn it, this should be changed. AFAIK the German prog site Babyblaue Seiten started off with 10 points for the reviews, and now they've expanded it to 15!!!

Agreed. 5 steps are far too limiting. Consider this:

When I review several albums of the same artist (or in a very similar style), I try to maintain proper relations between the albums.

Example:

1. Synergy (? ... haven't heard in full yet)
2. Terria
3. Infinity
4. Accelerated Evolution
5. Physicist

Now how do I express this by means of ratings? In the archives I would do it like this:

1. Synergy: 5
2. Terria: 5
3. Infinity: 4
4. Accelerated Evolution: 4
5. Physicist: 3

The problem here is that this is too crude. I think that Infinity is almost as good as Terria, and Accelerated Evolution is really not as good as Infinity. Yet the star rating forces me to make unjust choices.

Example with half-stars (10 steps):

1. Synergy: 5
2. Terria: 5
3. Infinity: 4.5
4. Accelerated Evolution: 4
5. Physicist: 3.5

This is better ... but not perfect. Example with 15 steps (like on babyblaue-seiten):

1. Terria: 14
2. Synergy: 13
3. Infinity: 12
4. Accelerated Evolution: 10
5. Physicist: 9

Now it looks good. Of course the more albums you want to compare, the more steps you would need in order to assign a different step to each album. But that is not necessary ... it's a subjective decision, but I think that 15 steps are enough. Below I tried to explain these 15 steps (the number in parentheses is the resulting rating in the archives):

1. Awful, Disgusting (1)
2. Terrible (1)
3. Really bad (1)
4. Bad (2)
5. Poor, for completionists only (2)
6. Decent, but for completionists only (2)
7. Not bad, but below par (3)
8. Not bad (3)
9. Quite ok (3)
10. Good (4)
11. Good, with some real highlights (4)
12. Very good, only some minor shortcomings in some songs (4)
13. Extraordinary album, a masterpiece in its domain without real shortcomings (5)
14. Masterpiece Level 1: Essential (5)
15. Masterpiece Level 2: Essential, and in my top 20 (5)

I have an album booklet with all the recent

Prog albums listed and on it says “Devin

Townsend’s most amazing piece of work

Yet!”, I have to say that its worth more than

one star.

I do agree with one thing though, and that is what was stated about 1 & 5 reviews, certainly VERY few of the albums deserve 5 stars, I have read a couple of people raving about albums recently in reviews and then say something like "the albums one weak point" or "not a perfect song" etc.. well that album should be bloody PERFECT to get 5 stars, well, thats my opinion anyway..

I seriously think I can give 5 star reviews to maybe 15 -20 albums and I have THOUSANDS. SO FEW albums are PERFECT, most are decent (3 stars) some are great (4 stars) FEW are flawless.