Your rating system

smartpatrol wrote: 5.0: Masterpiece; perfect or just about perfect 4.5: Amazing; almost a masterpiece but not quite 4.0: Great; no major flaws 3.5: Got some bad songs, but mostly awesome 3.0: Mixed; a lot of ups and downs 2.5: Forgettable and 2.0 to 0.5 are varying degrees of bad

I increasingly find rating standards to be trite and unnecessary--  'what do I think?' is my rating system

Atavachron wrote: I increasingly find rating standards to be trite and unnecessary--  'what do I think?' is my rating system

smartpatrol wrote: 3.5: Got some bad songs, but mostly awesome 3.0: Mixed; a lot of ups and downs

For what it's worth, here's what the stars mean to me.

5 stars = Album with few to no weak spots, I am truly awed by it.  My enjoyment is likely to translate to others, and the album has a "special place" in my heart and soul.

4 stars = Excellent album that I would recommend. Either very consistently good, or so strange and original that it makes up for any flaws or shortcomings.

3 stars = A good album that I enjoy, but would probably not place on a "favorites" list. 

2 stars = A so-so to decent album that's fairly flawed but can still be a bit of fun if I'm in the right mood. (edit: typical of this category could be albums where I really like just one or two songs a lot)

1 star = I haven't given any of these yet.  Just a bad album.  I just haven't been inspired to spend the time reviewing, let alone listening carefully enough to produce a thoughtful review, something I truly consider bad.  Plus, I kind of like "bad" albums in a perverse sort of way, so I'd be torn as to whether to really give it the 1.


Edited by HolyMoly - November 28 2012 at 15:58

Very cool thread.....

Tom Ozric wrote: Very cool thread.....                My general rating system works like this..................as an example ;  an album featuring 8 cuts..........I rate each piece out of 5...............then, because the rate is out of 5, then, 8 tracks X 5 score = 40.  Then, the total track-by-track rating, divide by, in this case, 40, times 100 then gives me the percentage.  It is with this calculation I establish whether an album is 1 star (0-19), 2 stars (20-39), 3 stars (40-59), 4 stars (60-79) then 5 stars 80-100.  Sure, a masterpiece should end with 100%, but this is a damn near impossible thing.  Even on my favourite albums, I've never come across the entire track-list being all 5's in quality for each song..........It may be geeky, but this is how I rate my albums.........

For me, an album is more than the sum of its parts, and so I would never use a system similar to yours. For example, I rate 2112 as a five star album, even though no song on side two would get a five from me. If I used your system, 2112 would get about 67%. But I think the album as a whole is stronger than that despite the weakness of some of it's songs. The title track being so long and so good gives it more weight than a single five star song of say, 4 minutes on another album.

I end up putting a lot at 5 that would be 9/10 if the rating system was more fine grained.

5:  Incredible, like nothing I have ever heard before, can't stop listening to it
4:  Wonderful, enjoyed it very much,it's going to be in the playlist for a long time
3:   Pretty good, not something I can't do without...just meh
2:   Decent at best, pretty dull/weak, get it away
1:   Horrible, never ever gonna listen to this

5 stars - Either its Close To The Edge or Red or its one of my favourite bands and I will give it top marks even though others think its a pile of ****