Ratings in the archives - guidelines

I voted "Primarily how much you like it, but also the progressiveness". But there are some other criteria, such as musicianship composition, arrangements, etc. Still, I wouldn't give an album that I don't believe is prog at all more than three stars. It clearly says "a masterpiece of progressive music" and "Excellent addition to any prog music collection", and a non prog album, however good it is, is not essential is a prog collection.

horza wrote: Atkingani wrote: Presently I try to follow the guidelines abovementioned - together with the 10 commandments there on the Review Page but I confess that I hear the voice of my heart too and I end making a share not necessarily 50/50.   P.S.: my 500th post. Congrats on the 500

Thanks Horza

 Guigo

A few days late to respond, but if I can throw in a "newbie's" opinion:

Personally I don't care what basis you use to make your ratings, as long
as you explain why you've made the rating you did. That is what makes
the ratings useful. If you are in love with the band, and acknowledge it,
then I can factor that into what you've written about them. If you just
slap on a rating and don't explain the basis for your choice, it's pretty
useless.

One observation - it wouldn't be a bad thing, IMHO, if there was a control
to prevent one from excessively biasing their ratings. If you are rating a
lot of recordings, it should form something approaching a normal
Gaussian distribution. (Sorry for the mathematical terminology.) For
instance, if you rate everything as 4-star or 5-star, does that mean you
love everything, or only choose to rate the stuff you love? Expand your
horizons! and listen to some diverse stuff.

Love this website, it has provided me with some good recommendations
of 70s prog that i probably would not have discovered or chanced
otherwise (Caravan, Khan, Kraan, Banco, ...)

Flemdido wrote: A few days late to respond, but if I can throw in a "newbie's" opinion: Personally I don't care what basis you use to make your ratings, as long as you explain why you've made the rating you did. That is what makes the ratings useful. If you are in love with the band, and acknowledge it, then I can factor that into what you've written about them. If you just slap on a rating and don't explain the basis for your choice, it's pretty useless. One observation - it wouldn't be a bad thing, IMHO, if there was a control to prevent one from excessively biasing their ratings. If you are rating a lot of recordings, it should form something approaching a normal Gaussian distribution. (Sorry for the mathematical terminology.) For instance, if you rate everything as 4-star or 5-star, does that mean you love everything, or only choose to rate the stuff you love? Expand your horizons! and listen to some diverse stuff. Love this website, it has provided me with some good recommendations of 70s prog that i probably would not have discovered or chanced otherwise (Caravan, Khan, Kraan, Banco, ...)

I largely agree with (and even applaud) your post, Flemdido, but I take issue with the parts I've highlighted in red.

It is worth remembering that the reviewers are fans, not professional critics, and thus are simply not given "diverse stuff" to review. We tend to review what we own, and we tend to own albums from artists that we like. Don't you like most of the discs in your collection, or do you have just as many albums you hate, as you have those you love? Who is going to give me the money to buy from artists I don't like, and, in any case, why should I (or any reviewer here), an unpaid volunteer, force myself to listen to what I consider to be bad music, as often as I listen to good? I need at least several listens to arrive at an informed opinion of a disc, and my leisure time is too precious (not to mention my limited budget for non-essentials) to spend much of it listening to music that I consider bad, or mediocre. I'm sure your listening habits are the same -- unless you're a masochist.

Thus, there will always tend to be many more favourable reviews than unfavourable ones in any given reviewer's body of work, and more favourable reviews than poor on the site as a whole. It just stands to reason, when you think it through.

 

On the other hand, if you were to start paying me for my time, and sending me all sorts of albums....

Edited by Peter

Peter wrote: It is worth remembering that the reviewers are fans, not professional critics, and thus are simply not given "diverse stuff" to review. We tend to review what we own, and we tend to own albums from artists that we like. Don't you like most of the discs in your collection, or do you have just as many albums you hate, as you have those you love? Who is going to give me the money to buy from artists I don't like, and, in any case, why should I (or any reviewer here), an unpaid volunteer, force myself to listen to what I consider to be bad music, as often as I listen to good? I need at least several listens to arrive at an informed opinion of a disc, and my leisure time is too precious (not to mention my limited budget for non-essentials) to spend much of it listening to music that I consider bad, or mediocre. I'm sure your listening habits are the same -- unless you're a masochist.

I think that what you are saying is true for the most part ... but us collabs are (or at least should be IMO) semi-professional critics, which also involves reviewing albums we don't like. Sometimes it can be more useful to show someone what type of music you don't like than to show him your favorite albums.

But how can we obtain albums we don't like in order to review them? Well, those of us who live in the USA, Canada, UK or Germany can use Napster. at a very affordable price you get access to numerous albums which you can listen to as often as you want ... here's a small selection of the available albums:

http://www.mikeenregalia.com/home/collection/napster.xhtml

It's impossible to create 'fair' and objective system of rating. Everyone has his own point of view on the same rated album and every rating will be 'polluted' by subjectivizm.

Easy Livin wrote: The ratings shoudl be based only on your view of the content of the album, except that five star ratings should be reserved for masterpieces of prog only. By doing so, we will help to guide people towards the cream of the genre.

Agreed with Bob.

Five stars should be for progressive albums and/or at least for historically important albums only.

Like Mike says, the collabs are trying to write as semi-pro critics (some of us anyway) and I am always trying to see how meaningfull the album historically , artistically, commercially , musically, conceptually etc..

I really believe that in such a semi-professional Progressive rock critic sense, no albums from Peter Gabriel should be above four stars in this site, simply because that progressive tinged pop is not really progressive.

We must try to exclude/overide our fan attitudes and try to be as completely objective as possible in our reviews, but still stating that you like the album for such ans such completely unobjective reasons. However that last part should not be weighing too much in the rating of the album

But then again, even I made some exceptions to this and if Spirit and Jefferson Airplane were to be included, I would probably give 5* to 12 Dreams and Crown Of Creation, not even because they are historically important, but on the sheer quality of the album.

I am one to believe that less than 5% of ratings should be 5*

 

Edited by Sean Trane

Sean Trane wrote: I am one to believe that less than 5% of ratings should be 5*

Since we don't have half stars, I would widen that to 5-10%. But only if one were to rate all the albums he knows. Usually you'll review mostly those which you like, and occasionally some bad ones. The more serious you see your "job" as a reviewer, the more bad albums you'll review ... but I guess the ratio will always be biased towards the good albums, even for very professional reviewers.

 

^ ok. But considering that I currently know approx. 800 prog albums, 5% would still be 40 albums. I think that from all these albums something between 50 and 100 albums would be 5 stars for me. In the Gnosis system I would probably end up with 10-20 album of 15 points.

I once read a review of a performance of 'McBeth' The professional journalist, who was paid for his work, simply wrote 'No' I guess he didn't like it....

I dont personally feel there should be any guidelines to how many stars one awards to an album. How 'prog' an album is may be as subjective in itself, as the emotional response it evokes in the listener. I would only rate an album by how much I enjoy it, I dont care how progressive it is or isn't. I'm sure there are albums out there that are so 'progressive' that I would personally find them unlistenable. Should I rate them highly just because they are very experimental..?