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.

I pick the fourth...

For example, i very much like Rhapsody - Symphony Of The Enchanted Lands. However i don't see them prog enough, so i gave 3 stars to that album. Otherwise, i probably would give a 4 stars...

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.

Certain albums like Radiohead - Ok Computer will always be controversial re their prog status. I see what you mean and I like that idea. But that could also be enforced by the system - for example by treating 5 star ratings like 4 star ratings for Prog Related artists/albums.

W.Chuck wrote: Well, I think there should be several points included: if you like it if it is progressive if it is interesting/boring if it is varied if it is innovative/original

I don't think that all of that should be compiled into one single number. We should rather have different ratings for all these aspects. But I think that the most important one is "if you like it".

Tony Fisher wrote: Once a band is in here, it is progressive. Even if it is not in your opinion, you should review the album for its quality alone. I hate seeing "This is a great album but not very progressive so I'm only giving it 3 stars".

Exactly. Such a rating tells you nothing ... you only end up trying to determine which rating that person would have given the album under "normal circumstances".

I believe there has been to much more or less "non prog" bands represented on the site the last weeks. The criteria for calling a band progressive should be stronger and discussed more among them who select which one's to be represented here.

Then it would be easyer for people to rate and compare bands in the various genres. But it's obviously that at lot of people don't know what prog is when they rate for instance Yes, Close to the Edge with 1 star!

Ratings are:

Essential: a masterpiece of progressive music

Excellent addition to any prog music collection

Good, but non-essential

Collectors/fans only

Poor. Only for completionists

Then, as long as I understand English, 5 stars shall be only for a prog work. An album like "CTTE" may receive the maximum here but in an hypothetical "PopArchives" receive only 2 stars, perhaps 3. The opposite shall happen with a Peter Gabriel or ELO album, for instance.

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.

The rating should only show how much you like the album

Not on what others think!

Atkingani wrote: Then, as long as I understand English, 5 stars shall be only for a prog work. An album like "CTTE" may receive the maximum here but in an hypothetical "PopArchives" receive only 2 stars, perhaps 3. The opposite shall happen with a Peter Gabriel or ELO album, for instance.

Isn't that a subjective decision which is different for each one of us? If someone chooses to give 5 stars to a Peter Gabriel album, there is no way to determine whether this conforms to these guidelines or not. So why try to get people to make that distinction in the first place?  

Alternative 4

"Primarily how much you like it, but also the progressiveness"

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Atkingani wrote: Then, as long as I understand English, 5 stars shall be only for a prog work. An album like "CTTE" may receive the maximum here but in an hypothetical "PopArchives" receive only 2 stars, perhaps 3. The opposite shall happen with a Peter Gabriel or ELO album, for instance.   Isn't that a subjective decision which is different for each one of us? If someone chooses to give 5 stars to a Peter Gabriel album, there is no way to determine whether this conforms to these guidelines or not. So why try to get people to make that distinction in the first place?

I used Gabriel's as an example to display my understanding but the criteria of reviewing may vary from person to person as we may see on the polls results.  

IMO if an album is included here, should be rated as prog - thats what PA chose it to be right???

thus, we should only rate by the fact of how much we like it

or maybe another way is not to rate some album we do not think as prog

The Miracle wrote: 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.

But if you take the guidelines that rigidly re "ANY prog music collection", you get the problem that most people have really different definitions of a prog music collection.

Example: Devin Townsend - Terria. I guess that 1/3 of this community thinks that it is essential to any prog music collection, 1/3 think the exact opposite, and the rest doesn't care about Terria. 

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

aapatsos wrote: IMO if an album is included here, should be rated as prog - thats what PA chose it to be right??? thus, we should only rate by the fact of how much we like it or maybe another way is not to rate some album we do not think as prog

Maybe it would also be interesting to add another dropdown box to the review form:

• This album is not progressive
• This album is reasonably progressive
• This album is very progressive

Hmm ... I like this! This could solve the problem of how to handle non-prog albums.

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.

Ah, but what exactly is "prog?" (It's a very subjective concept, that's what!) One person's "prog" is another's metal, folk, hard rock, classic rock, etc. Next, define "masterpiece," and indicate how prog is a definable "genre." What are its boundaries? (You'll never get agreement on those concepts!)

In any case, how many non-Archive reviewers (from whence comes the bulk of the reviews) do you think are guided by those words?

I like the first choice -- any album here should be able to qualify for top marks, as a piece of art in its own right. Let the actual review do the talking, and any pointing toward the "cream of the genre."

As I've said many, many times, I vote to remove the words attached to the ratings altogether. (1 = lowest grade, 5 = highest.)

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....

I take Payola.

Just send me your albums and cash and I'll give em all the stars you want.

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

It's a matter of opinion really. I like the way all us reviewers have a different way of looking at something- it shows us for who we are.

Lets not be robots people.

The rating should only show how much you like the album!

When I review an album, I don't rate it because it's progressive etc, but I rate it after how much I like the album. I don't listen to prog because it's progressive, but because I like the music. Therefore, I rate prog albums after how much I like'em!

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*

This is getting ridiculous, i mean, ratings and reviews are only personal opinions. So if one guy likes Genesis - Duke so much that he want's to rate it 5 stars, he's not allowed to do it only because the album is not "important enough" ???

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.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: 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.

Fully agreed, but if you go back to that Gnosis rating scale based on 15, they say (and I fully agree with this), that only 1% at most of all albums are utter masterpiece.

So if I use the 5% mark, it is because I take into account the factor you mention and therefore multiply it by a factor 5 - given also that we are in a selective rating site and we are rating a style of music that pleases the raters/reviewers/writers.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ 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.

As I said in the other thread, Gnosis is very selective about the raters they have on their boards. I thought I was a big cookis, but somehow I am shrunk to humble levels comparred to some of those other raters - a few of them write for the Exposé magazine.

I have roughly a bit less than 4 000 ratings from a selection of almost 60 000 album, while some have up to 12 000. However, I choose not to rate everything I know at disposal in that databse.

If you can believe that out iof those 4000 ratings I have no 15 and just a dozen 14, you will understand I am rather hard to please.

A bit like the Epping Forest reverand.

And on the Archives , out of my 1499 reviews, some 75 or so are five stars so it comes almost to 5%, which I swear was completely fortuitious and non-subconscious  - or if it is subconscious, I do not calculate to this.

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..?

Blacksword wrote: 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. Agreed so far!!! 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 Tons of unlistenable progressive music albums exists that fit the unbearable category. Should I rate them highly just because they are very experimental..?

Of course not since experimental albums can be highly flawed.

However, Andy we ARE on a prog site and not a generalist site, and therefore such a dimension must enter the rater's reflection too.

Or else this would be just another site with no specifics.

Sean Trane wrote: Blacksword wrote: 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. Agreed so far!!! 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 Tons of unlistenable progressive music albums exists that fit the unbearable category. Should I rate them highly just because they are very experimental..? Of course not since experimental albums can be highly flawed. However, Andy we ARE on a prog site and not a generalist site, and therefore such a dimension must enter the rater's reflection too. Or else this would be just another site with no specifics.

True, but because a band is listed in our archives it must have been deemed to be progressive to some extent, when it was first added. So everything we review will of course be prog rock, however contraversial the artists inclusion may have been (Radiohead, Queen etc)

I know for a fact that I have awarded 4 or 5 stars to the Genesis albums 'Duke' and 'and then there were three' and they are barely prog, I just love the music. Perhaps my criteria is too simplistic...

Another thing to consider is modern prog bands who imitate the 'old masters' Glass Hammer is a good example. I've rated them highly, again purely because I love their songs but they are hardly pushing back the boundaries of music..  

timothy leary wrote: tough decisions glad i don`t have to make them but for someone who is new to the site who goes to the letter g on the band index and punches up grey eye glances and sees all those 5 star ratings even though it is one person doing the rating they might think grey eye is better than gentle giant . They are not, of course maybe 5 star ratings by one person for one band should be limited and i realize there is a warning of only one rating but somer who might be new might think grey eye glances are the best prog have to offer in closing i personally don`t even thjink grey eye glances is prog i am not a good typist so i dont review could you imagine all the typo erros i`d be too lazy to edit in one of my reviews

This is exactly my point, you got to keep a sense of perspective and for that purpose, you need an extensive knowledge and a good understanding of the historical fact.

There is no way a Pendragon album (however sweet sounding and melodious it may be) comes even close to the height of the knee of SEBTP

or that the latest ELP-clone come to the waist of Egg or even Tarkus.

Sense of Perspective is what it is all about if you are to review seriously.

It may sound unfair to newer groups, but let's face it they are not breaking new grounds, just cultivating what is proven formulas.

Further comments?

Mike's thread is an excellent topic.

^ thanks!

And so far the votes show that opinions really are divided on the subject, with a small preference to a mixture of both. I like that, and it's also my opinion.

But I don't think that it should be 50/50 if that means that a non prog album can only score 2.5 stars (=3 stars) at most. Cut one star off the maximum rating if you feel that the album is not prog, that's my strategy.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ thanks! And so far the votes show that opinions really are divided on the subject, with a small preference to a mixture of both. I like that, and it's also my opinion. But I don't think that it should be 50/50 if that means that a non prog album can only score 2.5 stars (=3 stars) at most. Cut one star off the maximum rating if you feel that the album is not prog, that's my strategy.

Close to mine (strategy), which comes down to saying a non-prog album can only get four stars at max!