Raters who suck

thellama73 wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: thellama73 wrote: They are not assumptions, they are explicit statements in the review guidelines. I'm saying that when you rate an album that is one of your favorites lower than a 5 based on the guidelines, that what you are essentially doing is making assumptions on what other people's enjoyment will be based on certain musical factors you are analyzing. I don't agree with you, because the star rating is not just about enjoyment. A three star rating is not a signal that "you will will not enjoy this that much" it is saying "this album is good and you may absolutely love it, but it is not essential."Essentiality and enjoyment are not the same thing, and the former can be based on somewhat more objective criteria than the latter.

How do you know what's essential to me or anyone else but yourself?

thellama73 wrote: The quality of being essential implies a few things: 1. That the album is generally considered to be good.

AHA! AHA!!!!!! So you admit that you are assuming what other's enjoyment is/will be!!!!!! FOR THE WIN!!!

thellama73 wrote: 3. That it is historically important in that it covered new territory or was influential to other bands.Granted, all of these are somewhat subjective, but they consist of more than simple enjoyment.

Soooo...you can't ever give anything 5 stars unless it's at least 10 years old? I think that's ridiculous, myself. Or, maybe you are trying to predict the future historical significance, which is impossible.

dtguitarfan wrote: thellama73 wrote: The quality of being essential implies a few things: 1. That the album is generally considered to be good. AHA! AHA!!!!!! So you admit that you are assuming what other's enjoyment is/will be!!!!!! FOR THE WIN!!! No, that's not what I said. I was referring to general consensus that the album has quality. This assumes nothing about the individual enjoyment of the person reading the review. thellama73 wrote: 3. That it is historically important in that it covered new territory or was influential to other bands.Granted, all of these are somewhat subjective, but they consist of more than simple enjoyment. Soooo...you can't ever give anything 5 stars unless it's at least 10 years old? I think that's ridiculous, myself. Or, maybe you are trying to predict the future historical significance, which is impossible.

No, you'll note that I also included "groundbreaking" as a criterion, which has nothing to do with age. There is such a thing as a modern classic.

I should note that I also think an album can be essential without being very good (although it wouldn't be a masterpiece and therefore not worthy of five stars) Dream Theater's albums are certainly essential to a prog metal collection because of their importance to the genre, just as the Ramones are essential to a punk collection. The fact that I do not particularly enjoy either band does not make them less essential.

To reply to all that thellama73 just said - I think I've made my point already, but just think about your replies.  How do you know what the general consensus of quality is?  Are you saying you can't ever give out a 5 star unless you've seen 100 other people give a 5 star to the album?  EDIT: And if so, that's not very fair to new albums - what happens when you're specifically asked to review an album that hasn't even been release to the public?  Are you going to say that there's no way you could ever go higher than...oh, say a 3? 

Edited by dtguitarfan - September 20 2012 at 08:56

thellama73 wrote: You keep complaining that my criteria (which are not hard and fast by any means) are subjective, but I never claimed otherwise. Of course they are subjective, that's why we have reviews and not scientific reports on an album's quality. But that doesn't mean that it all boils down to enjoyment either. If you believe a new album is so effective, so innovative and so technically excellent as to qualify as a an essential masterpiece of progressive music, then by all means rate it five stars. I did with Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's "Of Natural History" and I stand by that rating. But don't haphazardly award five star ratings to every new album by a band you like.

I'm not complaining, I'm saying that in my opinion all reviewers can really do is measure their own enjoyment and guess what other people's enjoyment will be.  And I think that if reviewers were more honest about that, there would be less hurt feelings.  Because it hurts less to say "well, I really didn't enjoy this but it's ok if you do" than to say "this is utter rubbish and anyone who does not agree is stupid."

thellama73 wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: I'm saying that in my opinion all reviewers can really do is measure their own enjoyment and guess what other people's enjoyment will be. So you don't think the word "essential" has any meaning distinct from "enjoyable?"

I don't think I, or anyone else for that matter, can truly decide if an album is essential.  I can only guess at it, and the only way I think that I can make that call is to measure my own enjoyment and guess at what other people's enjoyment will be.

HolyMoly wrote: I think everyone has their own variation on a generally accepted ratings system (i.e. 1 = bad, 5 = great), and I think both of you are good, reasonable guys whose ratings I would trust.  I think the problem lies with much more extreme examples of people who gratuitously and repeatedly dole out extreme scores without any apparent reason.  The "apparent" part is what's subjective here.

dtguitarfan wrote: thellama73 wrote: dtguitarfan wrote: I'm saying that in my opinion all reviewers can really do is measure their own enjoyment and guess what other people's enjoyment will be. So you don't think the word "essential" has any meaning distinct from "enjoyable?" I don't think I, or anyone else for that matter, can truly decide if an album is essential.  I can only guess at it, and the only way I think that I can make that call is to measure my own enjoyment and guess at what other people's enjoyment will be.

'Essential' and 'enjoyable' are different indeed, I like drawing a distinction there.


To help understand the development of a genre, and contextualise an album in the history of that genre/of music, then a reviewer will give an opinion on whether an album is 'Essential.'

However, I can still certainly 'enjoy' listening to non-essential albums in a genre, in addition, to echo what's already been said, I can also fail to love an album that I consider 'Essential' to a given genre - that doesn't stop me still recognising that it has value re: it's place in genre, and suggesting that a listener who's interested in music or whatever genre ought to know the album.

A quick example would be that a Black Sabbath album would be essential to understanding metal, and thus a few of their albums are probably essential, even if I wouldn't enjoy each album 5 stars worth etc

^ I already answered that question twice, so I'll let Roberts take a crack at it.

I'd say that if a pre-release is so good that I felt it was Essential, I'd say so based on my knowledge of the genre and its history. 

In fact, I could say the same even if I didn't like it as much as 5 stars, I'd still argue that it had value in its role of "reinventing the genre" perhaps or "doing the genre proud and matching the classics" or some such