Personal Grading Systems

Yeah I've recently asked around how the hell are you rating albums coz I don't understand. 

Myself I rate albums intuitively, by directly assigning a grade/rating to the work in question.

You should be aware that what you do is very misleading. At the end of the review you state something like "This albums gets 4.25" but the rating is *** 

You should put a disclaimer somewhere, like "Please read my profile for details on my rating system" (You'll get a profile page when you become a Prog Reviewer).

You ended Zepp III's review with "Total Rating: 3,45" and you gave it **, that's what I mean.

While I have yet to submit my first review (I'm still trying to decide which title will get the dubious honour) I have already come up with my ratings system to help guide me through the process. It's broken up into 5 elements and looks something like this.

Full disclosure
This is were I will inform the reader of any factor which may influence my review, such as
"This is the only recording by this band that I have heard"
OR
"I have all the bands recordings and they have always been a favourite of mine"
OR
"I have participated in the production of this recording in the following areas"


1 - Production
I will discuss the production values of the recording in layman's terms.

2 - Song writing
I will discuss the song writing in a structural or impressionistic way

3 - Originality
I will discuss the sound of the recording as it relates to originality, such as
"This band has a distinct King Crimson sound"
OR
"This band is heavily influenced by the likes of ELP"

4 - Performance
I will discuss the band member's knowledge of their instrument as it relates to the music being played

5 - Overall impression
I will discuss the recording as a whole including continuity of sound or theme

Finally, my "Star" rating. Probably one of the most contested subjects on this site from what I've seen (next to the Emerson/Wakeman battles.

Each element gets a rating out of 20 for a possible grand total of 100. This number is used as a percentage value on the 5 star system.
For example:

1 - 15/20
2 - 12/20
3 - 20/20
4 - 10/20
5 - 13/20

Total is 70.
That 70% of 5 stars or 3.5

Does that sound reasonable? I'm happy to improve the process before I get into doing my reviews if anyone has a compelling argument.

I try to follow the meaning of PA's system as much as possible. I personally love the idea of only 5 stars because the meaning of each one is so distinct, it makes reviewing an album easier. 

Rune2000 wrote: JD wrote: Does that sound reasonable? I'm happy to improve the process before I get into doing my reviews if anyone has a compelling argument. That sounds like a very well thought through idea! Besides, I have seen a couple of people here on Prog Archives who use a similar system and since it seems to work for them I guess it should also work for you. Here are my thoughts on your system: I know that this type of system would never work for me because I know very little about production values, as long as it doesn't sound date i.e. 80's metal etc. I would probably enjoy it just as much. I know that many of my friends can have long in-depth discussion about the production differences between the latest two Iron Maiden-releases, but that is something I know nothing about although I've heard the two releases.  "member's knowledge of their instrument" is another thing that I have hard to analyze because I usually first listen to the compositions and it takes a long time until I start to notice the specific instrumentation arrangements as long as they aren't right in front of me. But I actually tend to dislike the in your face-type of musical arrangements no matter if an artist has skills or not. If it's a band then they basically have to sound like one. It would be nearly impossible for me to rate something on a scale from 1 to 20 because that would mean that I would have to know what every specific rating implies. That is exactly why I rate every track from 1 to 5 and later the rating is calculated automatically based on those 1 to 5 song ratings. I would once again like to stress that this is my personal opinion and I have no intension of changing anyones personal opinion.

Thanks for the feedback, and I understand your comments, I would certainly not get into any deep technical discussions on Production or Performance as I believe the majority of readers are either at a layman's level (not to be condescending) or really don't care that much about those elements at that deep a level.

 The score out of 20 is more of a math thing (with five main elements) but still easy enough for me to work within as a 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 score system (still basically 5 points). And while I know that a lot of reviewers do the track by track evaluations I like to try and consider the project as a whole. Maybe because that's the way I approach the recording process, as a project.

At the end of the day, and other have brought up this point, it's the verbiage that is most useful for me as well. The rating system is simply a guide, a five circle target with the bullseye being something that should demand my attention at least once.

Rune2000 wrote: JD wrote: Thanks for the feedback Thank you for this clarification/explanation, now I'm really looking forward to reading your reviews.

Me too, if I could only decide which one to do ! I may work on a few over the next week with  the goal of having my first review posted at the beginning of the new year. Time is always against me with so many thing on the go.

Rune2000 wrote: JD wrote: Me too, if I could only decide which one to do ! I may work on a few over the next week with  the goal of having my first review posted at the beginning of the new year. Time is always against me with so many thing on the go. That's why I decided pretty early on that I will not write any long reviews. They are time consuming and take a lot of effort for the reader to actually get through.

Ahh, brevity, another important factor to a successful review. Absolutely agree.

I think you're overthinking this.