Against the norm?

Ha, I think I might still have a few silly ratings like that sitting around still. Funny, when I decided to go back and edit all my bungled old reviews once I'd gotten prog reviewer status... I kind of, well, expected that I would edit more than four before I got too tired of it. Hm. I do have a lot of cleanup to do on my early end of things, still.

The part that always gets me is the desire to rate a (in my opinion, naturally) way overrated album something lower than I normally would feel it would deserve. Take for example Tool's Lateralus. It's a pretty lame album in my book, not very interesting, well drummed but aside from that musically weak. But since it's rated so very highly by so many people, there is that awful tendency to want to rate it one star, to lower the rating as much as possible towards where it deserves to be. Again, talking all opinions here. It probably shouldn't rate any lower than two stars from me, more likely a three, as it's not all bad, just kind of middling and uninteresting to me. Anyone else feel they have to fight back that urge to try to swing the rating as much as possible rather than give it a fair number of stars?

Also, I've said this before, but I and some number of others tend to look first for which album has the MOST ratings. Look at Frank Zappa. He's got a billion albums, and there are a lot of them highly rated. What is a newbie to his music to do? I look for the album that the largest number of people have been interested in enough to rate. Sure enough, Hot Rats is there (and also highly rated, a wonderful combination!). When I'm familiar with an artist and his or their or whatever discography, then I don't use this method. It's just for looking into new people I'm not familiar with. Yay. I wrote all that.

Atavachron wrote: of course anyone's opinion is welcome, but if we're talking reviews and not just ratings, I personally think it's important to write a cohesive review with reasonably backed-up and/or qualified remarks regardless of the opinion of the music..i.e. if one says an album widely recognized as high quality is crap, at least tell us precisely why you believe this.  There's no problem with a negative review but, just as with a shining write-up for something considered mediocre, if it doesn't show why the opinion is rendered then it isn't terribly helpful and loses credibility.

I think you nailed it right there.

edit: It all comes out in the wash anyway. The strong albums will remain strong regardless of a few low ratings.


Edited by StyLaZyn - July 19 2009 at 09:07

^ A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers is never going to be catchy, but at least it's memorable

IMO we shouldn't really bother because in the end it's the general opinion that matters. 

Toaster Mantis wrote: Keppa4v wrote: There was one guy around here a while back who used to rate albums only one or five stars, just so that he could have as much effect on the overall rating as possible. Perhaps because of him I sometimes think, seeing a one star review of a classic, that the thought behind the rating is not "here, have my honest opinion" but "let's see how much I can take the rating down". Which obviously is not always the case, that's just the feeling I got from watching him work. Hmmm... aren't reviews here approved by the mods before they can be displayed? It's that way over at metal-archives, though that kind of contrarian reviews do get through if they're written and argued well enough. But I'm perhaps too generous when it comes to ratings, right now I can't think of a single prog album I'd like to rate one star. Ironically the one that gets closest is perhaps Script for a Jester's Tear, but I'm sure if I listened to it more I'd find some merits lifting my opinion about it. It's just not a tempting idea. I go a step further and say that 5/5 albums (or 10/10 or 100% or however you rate them) are really rare. I generally find that these really high ratings are way too often given out, with a lot of reviewers thinking that a rating below 4/5 or such an equivalent tantamounts to being negative. There's a bit of a "if it doesn't rule then it sucks" mentality going on.

People look to ratings, not to what they actually mean. For example... three stars (rating 2.98 for example) is still GOOD, but not essential. What's wrong with a good record? Two stars means it's still nice for fans.. so what's the problem for the fans? I do think the one star rating is exceptional for music listed here on progarchives, but some records just don't leave me another choise.

StyLaZyn wrote: to Mr. Progfreak: Well that is my point. To you and most it doesn't. But to some it may be the case.

Sure, that's why I said that people can submit any rating they want ... but that doesn't mean that we can't discuss or criticize these ratings. Free speech/opinion works both ways.

Check out Philippe's one-star reviews, they're hilarious. But they make sense too.

I remember one guy here giving CttE one star, he almost got ripped apart by the mob.

We should just get around to accepting that any fan of a genre usually has a handful of "classics" he or she doesn't like. I think that's more or less a universal rule.

EDIT: I do dislike the process of rating an album highly even if you actively dislike it just because of its historical influence, if anything an album you find to be objectively bad should be even more criticized if it's an influential album... at least if you consider its influence harmful to the genre. Placing influence above actual quality in terms of rating it is something I find symptomatic of an overtly detached academic approach to music.


Edited by Toaster Mantis - July 19 2009 at 04:39