Fundametal Flaw in the Archives

Man Overboard wrote: The real solution?  Read lots of reviews, get familiar with given reviewers' tastes, and see how they stack up against yours.  Read multiple reviews of the same album.  Read for the content, not for the score, and see what the content of the review means for you.  That is how you'll be best off on deciding if a particular album is worth a purchase.

Thats good advice M.O. I suppose too that its hard to measure against other works that you may not have heard.

We all have our opinions and favourites too and i suppose seeing Tormato getting slaughtered and lesser bands being praised is hard to stomach. It is like when a star player of some minor league player is given more headlines than a good honest team player from the major leagues when in reality the latter is a much better player. So with respect, Tormato which is not the best yes album would be a giant in the Asia catalogue.

First, a big  for AfanSpur!!!

The reiview issue is really a tricky task, and I don't think either ProgArchives or anyone could find an appropriate solution. The best seems so listen to Man Overboard and discriminate between reviews.

Another important issue regarding reviews is not to forget the specific genre-style the album being reviewed is in. For instance, I would rate most early Tangerine Dream stuff as "crap" according to my previous taste, but as I understood the attributes of Krautrock --> Electronic genre, I began to appreciate them (especially Phaedra). The same can be found in the different approaches to Kraftwerk: Kraftwerk debut album is only rated 3 stars by AMG, yet, I'm sure most proggers here will give it a big 5 becuase of its very original ideas at the time. On the contrary, later Kraftwerk albums (Radioactivity, Trans Europe Express, Man Machine etc.) hardly receive 3 stars from archives reviewers (and are compared to the Tangerine Dream works of the same period, for their lack of originality), whereas AMG accorded them at least 4.5 stars each (I think it was Man Machine which received 5, and so did Autobahn). This may also point to a disagremement in taste. However, prog reviewers are supposed to be more "united" around the same concept. That's why I have difficulty in understanding (and don't understand at all) why groups such as Asia and Barclay James Harvest are continuously awarded 4-5 stars (at least by some), though they hardly deserve a place in the Archives!

BaldFriede has a point saying  "In the whole the "big names" are certainly overrated; way too many of their albums get top ratings and only some deserve them; in many cases 4 or even 3 stars would be much more appropriate.", Pink Floyd, Rush, and more recent Dream Theater (not that I don't like them!) being the most prominent examples, yet, it is not the issue of being "big.." that AfanSpur is complaining about. It is simply the fact that music made by bands like Asia (and despite the really "big" names in their line-up!) sucks. We mustn't forget most "BIG" names did not earn the big name in vain (apart form the fact that some are really overrated). I believe somehow obscure bands such as Jonesy, Happy the Man, Horslips, and even Aphrodite's Child (because of the less number of albums they produced) are not in debate here. Even AfanSpur may not have an idea of them (not to condemn anyone because of uninformation, I have too little info about many bands featured here!), that a band is not known does not necessarily mean it is bad. On the contrary, Asia is very well known, yet dismissed by the dilligent :) On the other hand, (well, I won't appreciate the Tormato example, because I too believe that it sounds rather cheesy) very good albums like Keys to Ascension or Magnification just go overlooked, if not underrated, despite the "big" name.

The best solution is for each reviewer to listen to their hearts once more when reviewing, and give heed to the warning that pops-up when they ascribe 5 stars or 1 star!

Baldfreddy said "To name 3 of my personal favourites: "Fairy Tales" by Mother Gong, "Xitintoday" by Nik Turner's Sphynx and "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Peter Hammill (the 1999 version of it). And you don't need to look, Mother Gong and Nik Turner's Sphynx are not included in the archives yet (unjustly so)."

Well you got me there as i have never heard any of those.

Baldfreedy said "Sorry, I disagree again. The output of the lesser known bands was perhaps just musically less accessible for the average listener, but that doesn't make these bands or their output less good. Of course a lot of bands are unknown because they really weren't that good, but you can't make a general rule out of it."

Look i feel for those bands that for a lack of good luck or money, bad management wrong time wrong place , never made it big. There are many examples of bands singers making it big with little talent also.

Howeer my main argument is this: Yes are a big and very talented band, one of the leaders of the prog genre. CTTE and Fragile seem to be the great reference points and while hard core  -Yes fanscan be accused of going over the top( I have seen 5 star Tormato reviews)too,the fact remains that because of their greater highs their lesser albums are often harshly judged as we have seen on the front page today.Also we all like to back an underdog from time to time and be the champion of an obsure band that few people know of and when they get better known we jump ship onto a new obscure band to try and remain cool and hip. Yes however are not that . They have stood the test of time and are widely regarded as an important fixture in Prog.They deserve our respect, and i would say that very few people on here would rate the best Asia album over the worst of yes. I pick on Asia only because Alpha was give a 5 ! However day in and day out there are 5's given to bands who have sold about 4 and a half records three of which were bought by their family even though they each  have  twelve siblings .

How am i to know what is worth listening to when the accounts are overblown? Really three stars should mean it is worth listening to and 5 is a masterpiece.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: BaldFriede wrote: I don't write reviews for albums almost everybody knows; enough reviews have been written for them already. I much prefer to review albums hardly anyone knows but deserve more attention. That's why you will rarely find me giving less than 4 stars; why should I write a review of an album that justly doesn't get any attention?  That's what everyone should do. The problem in the top 100 list is mainly caused by a dramatic imbalance between lesser known albums and hugely popular albums. We all should chose 10 albums that we like very much AND which have too few ratings and write some reviews ... but that should include both ends of the spectrum, albums we like very much and albums we don't like. There are many albums with an average rating of 5.0 and only 1 or 2 reviews ...

Yes, There's no point of posting another Close to the Edge or Dark side of the moon review. Who's gonna read it anyway, there's already an hundered. One problem is that most popular albums get more reviews, as lesser known album get about no, and we all want reviews from lesser known albums so we can discover new albums that could be as good, if not better, than the most known ones. Who care review about In the court of the crimson king, everyone already know this album...

Besides that, reviews on highly known albums are often biased, cause a lot fans of the band give 5 stars just to up the overall rating of the album, or 1 stars make it lower. Most of them can't discribe the music properly, just by 'This music is perfect. Everyone should get out and get the album' and stuff like that. We rarely see these kind of reviews in album not much people knows.

Anyway, I think that less good album from the great bands get low ranks even if they are pretty good because they often aren't much original. You said Tormato was getting a low note, well, it might be because it sound like 'a bad Close to the Edge' to the reviewer, so he think the album isn't original. An album by a new group who is 'as good' as Tormato might get higher ranking because it probably is more original, and sound more fresh. Dont be affraid, overall notes for Yes, Pink Floyd, ELP, etc... albums always ends up with very high review from some other fans, so

No matter what, everything is subjective, no there's not much to says on people reviews. They like it, you might not, that's all.

I believe that for most reviewers there a different standards:

Some people believe that is Yes is capable of creating a masterpiece like CTTE, this is the starting point for their albums, so often they compare every Yes album with CTTE, and most loose by far.

I believe that Tormato deserves 2 stars at the most by any standards but Relayer is a 4 - 5 stars album.

About Asia, as BaldFriede  I agree with you IMO no Asia album derserves more than 3 stars (at the most), but the taste is not universal, I know a lot of progheads that love Asia and Art Rock, it's only a matter of taste.

That's why I don't give much credit to the ratings (even though use them as a quick reference), I try to read as many reviews as I can, because that's exactly where the important information should be.

Iván