Objectivity in rating albums

Guldbamsen wrote: Rating music or art is meaningless anyway. I find it absurd tbh.

Sacro_Porgo wrote: .......I think production is definitely subjective, it's just that many of us agree on the meaning of words like "clarity" and "balance" and also agree that they're good qualities for a record to have.

Edited by David_D - March 14 2022 at 02:05

I think reviews will often have some information that might be considered quasi objective, such as the general style, the instruments of note, and the musicians, as well as the general length of tracks and how vocal heavy they are, though even these would have some subjectivity,  For instance, one reviewer begins most reviews by saying where the album fits in the group's discography and where a song fits on the album, while another indicates what happens at a particular time in a song.  But by and large, I want to read reviews that are mostly subjective, even if I disagree with the reviewer.  If they make a coherent case for their point of view, hats off.   And when I write reviews, I limit the objective stuff to setting the stage. may take a certain position but it doesn't mean I couldn't take another position if in a different frame of mind, or at least be able to see the contrary point of view.

Sacro_Porgo wrote: Popularity is not an objective measurement of anything other than how many people like something.

I prophesy disaster wrote: As I see it, popularity is the only objective measure of quality. But to account for the widely different tastes in music, the popularity should be from the fans of the particular types of music. Thus, the quality of prog should be assessed by the popularity among prog fans, the quality of metal should be assessed by the popularity among metal fans, the quality of jazz should be assessed by the popularity among jazz fans, etc. And if one is a fan of avant-prog rather than symphonic prog, the quality of avant-prog should be assessed by the popularity among avant-prog fans rather than symphonic prog fans.

chopper wrote: There are some things that could be measured objectively but I don't see how they would affect the rating of an album - number of different chords, number of instruments played etc. Music rating is inherently subjective imo, for every album someone loves there will be someone who hates it.  There are some albums however that you can't really argue with. Let's take Close To The Edge as an example, there will be people who don't like it but you can't really argue that it is one of the most important and highly regarded prog albums and is therefore deserving of a reasonable rating. Can you?

There are definitely a variety of quantifiable traits about any piece of music that can be objectively stated: tempo, length, key, etc. How you feel about any of those is not at all objective. You can make objective comparisons to other pieces of music (these two songs have the same tempo, these two songs do a similar key change, etc.), and you can also make subjective comparisons to other pieces of music (these two songs both make me feel like I'm at the beach, these two songs don't share the same vibes at all, etc.). Generally music reviews and people who read them are much more interested in hearing all the subjective stuff, because we do share many opinions with each other. Like, if I were to say that Rush's New World Man is a less proggy song than King Crimson's Starless, most if not all of you would probably agree with me, because many of us do share similar concepts of what it means to be proggy. Similarly, there are a lot of technically subjective opinions about music we often take for granted as agreed upon by most everyone, just based on how we are taught to hear them and their most common uses. The obvious example: there's nothing objectively happy about a major chord and nothing objectively sad about a minor chord, but many of us who listen to western music are taught very early on that major chords are considered happier and minor chords are considered sadder. Row row row your boat is in major, and it's a very happy song. The Sound Of Silence starts out in a minor key, and it's a very sad song. Or at least, that's how the majority of people tend to interpret those two songs. 

Lewian wrote: A claim to objective knowledge is an absolute demand for obedience. (Humberto Maturana)

David_D wrote: And guys, read my OP carefully. I'm not asking about the degree of subjectivity, but about  a possible degree of objectivity.

Psychedelic Paul wrote: David_D wrote: David_D wrote: Psychedelic Paul wrote: Then again, you could use my Max Factor 10 rating system, where you rank each of the following album factors out of ten to give an overall percentage, although I've never used the system myself, as I'm far too subjective. .............. Would that make the rating more objective, and if so why? And where come those criteria from? They came from inside my own head. I didn't copy & paste the ratings criteria from another website, as Cristi might have you believe.