Raters who suck

HolyMoly wrote: I forgot about online translators, I guess a lot of people use those?  I was referring to the English-only rule as applied to someone who doesn't speak English at all -- which is one of the core reasons why we don't require a written review in order to rate an album.

digdug wrote: Dean wrote: ..Then why is it that many of the people who complain about the 100 word limit have English as their first language? The ability to have an opinion on a piece of music is not restricted by the language you speak, the emotions and feelings you get can be expressed in any language. Translating that into another language is not an issue of word-count or vocabulary.  If you feel that a particular section of music or a musician’s ability affects you in a certain way then putting that into words is what a review is. This is one hundred words. Yes but if your 100 words are not deemed good enough by the powers that be .... your 100 words are deleted I have no idea what I wrote back in 2008..... but I am pretty sure it did not deserve to be deleted. Here is an e-mail I dug up from 2008 ::snip::

Epignosis wrote: I enjoy Tormato and Close to the Edge.  Should I give them both five stars?

I know I've taken a while to address this, but let me ask you this: if you take away all the history, and opinions of other people, how would YOU rate each of these albums?  If your honest answer to that question is 5 stars for each, then give them each 5 stars, man!  Because think about this - if you are taking stars away from one of these albums because of history and other people's opinions, then what do you do when you're given an album that hasn't been released to the public yet and asked to review it?

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: I enjoy Tormato and Close to the Edge.  Should I give them both five stars? I know I've taken a while to address this, but let me ask you this: if you take away all the history, and opinions of other people, how would YOU rate each of these albums?  If your honest answer to that question is 5 stars for each, then give them each 5 stars, man!  Because think about this - if you are taking stars away from one of these albums because of history and other people's opinions, then what do you do when you're given an album that hasn't been released to the public yet and asked to review it?

It's impossible for me to divest myself of the context in which I hear albums.  I do not know what you mean by "history," but I can assure that other people's opinions do not drive my reviews.  It's a tad...I don't want to say offensive, but that's how it feels... that someone would suggest that I'm being somehow manipulated in the course of rating albums. 

I think you may still be missing my point: Enjoying an album is not all it takes for an album to five stars.  The question of enjoyment ventures beyond "yes or no." 

I love hot dogs and I love filet Mignon.  But in the span of my tastes, I would give a hot dog 3 stars and the filet Mignon 5 stars.  Similarly, I like both Tormato and Close to the Edge, but I like the latter far more than the former.  Hence three and five stars respectively.

What I don't like are

a) People who use 5 and 1 star exclusively

and

b) The gaggle of people that bombard this site with five star reviews for an album that just came out. 

Both of these strike me as disingenuous. 

I always just look at the average rating and give a rating as close to that number as possible. I don't want to ruffle any feathers by advancing a controversial opinion.

^ I think this needs moving to another thread. Reading it again  though. My style  seems jerky and uncomfortable

Epignosis wrote: I love hot dogs and I love filet Mignon.  But in the span of my tastes, I would give a hot dog 3 stars and the filet Mignon 5 stars.  Similarly, I like both Tormato and Close to the Edge, but I like the latter far more than the former.

But don't think of it in such general terms of hot dogs and filet mignon.  Think of it as if you were rating restaurants, and rating them according to what they are.  For example - say I was rating restaurants, and I went to this hot dog place that really made the best hot dogs I've ever had in my life!  5 stars!  Yeah, it's not filet mignon.  I never thought it would be.  And it wouldn't be fair for me to say "well, I can't give this restaurant a good rating because...well, it's not filet mignon."  For me, when I rate an album one of the thoughts that crosses my mind is "how often do I think I will listen to this album?"  And the answer to that doesn't always accurately define what rating I will give the album, but hopefully you get where I'm going.

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: I love hot dogs and I love filet Mignon.  But in the span of my tastes, I would give a hot dog 3 stars and the filet Mignon 5 stars.  Similarly, I like both Tormato and Close to the Edge, but I like the latter far more than the former. But don't think of it in such general terms of hot dogs and filet mignon.  Think of it as if you were rating restaurants, and rating them according to what they are.  For example - say I was rating restaurants, and I went to this hot dog place that really made the best hot dogs I've ever had in my life!  5 stars!  Yeah, it's not filet mignon.  I never thought it would be.  And it wouldn't be fair for me to say "well, I can't give this restaurant a good rating because...well, it's not filet mignon."  For me, when I rate an album one of the thoughts that crosses my mind is "how often do I think I will listen to this album?"  And the answer to that doesn't always accurately define what rating I will give the album, but hopefully you get where I'm going.

dtguitarfan wrote: Epignosis wrote: I love hot dogs and I love filet Mignon.  But in the span of my tastes, I would give a hot dog 3 stars and the filet Mignon 5 stars.  Similarly, I like both Tormato and Close to the Edge, but I like the latter far more than the former. But don't think of it in such general terms of hot dogs and filet mignon.  Think of it as if you were rating restaurants, and rating them according to what they are.  For example - say I was rating restaurants, and I went to this hot dog place that really made the best hot dogs I've ever had in my life!  5 stars!  Yeah, it's not filet mignon.  I never thought it would be.  And it wouldn't be fair for me to say "well, I can't give this restaurant a good rating because...well, it's not filet mignon."  For me, when I rate an album one of the thoughts that crosses my mind is "how often do I think I will listen to this album?"  And the answer to that doesn't always accurately define what rating I will give the album, but hopefully you get where I'm going.

That's not what Rob is saying.  Should or shouldn't you have the ability to discriminate between two restaurants, two albums, two movies, two novels and so on and so forth?  So much overwhelming positivity sounds nice on paper but it's also not very helpful or reliable for a reader.  If two restaurants are good but one is decidedly better than the other, my friends would expect me to say that, especially if they also call for varying budgets.  

Please bear in mind that your reviews are also for the consumption of users of the website and not just the product of your self indulgence.  I don't mean you specifically here, but just a figurative you.  If I wanted to rave about a favourite artist, I would find a friend I know who shares my preferences and rave to him or simply use my blog.  

A review is by nature an empathetic endeavour and not a self centred one.  You use the prism of your experience to attempt to describe and grade an album in a way that others might be able to relate to.   I do make an exception for this rule when it comes to albums that divide opinion:  if I really like it, I will just go ahead with my rating and if I don't, I will usually avoid rating or reviewing it.   But you do have to put yourself in the shoes of other listeners, it is not such a laughably presumptuous exercise as you make it out to be.  It is something we regularly do in life - attempting to understand the other person's feelings.   I cannot claim to completely understand what music is best for somebody else but I have to make an effort to relate to it when I review an album.  A review that is only concerned with what I, I and more capital I think about an album does not need to be shared with a larger audience for reading. 


Edited by rogerthat - September 23 2012 at 00:42

Ambient Hurricanes wrote: No one should get uptight about this issue.  True, we have rating guidelines on this site, but the key word is "guidelines;" there's no absolute standard of how to review and rate albums as long as you don't blatantly abuse the system.  Some try to review objectively, some subjectively; some rate based on "progressiveness" while others do so based on the quality of the music regardless of this style; some use more 1's and 5's and some use less.  Some of these differences can be irritating (I hate to see an album I like assigned less stars because it isn't "progressive" enough) but in the end we have to realize that everyone has a different way of evaluating music, and we have to respect each others' ways of doing that.  I'm all for discussion about the matter, because I think that there are better and worse ways of reviewing, but I don't think it's a big enough deal that anyone should be angry or frustrated about it.