What do your ratings mean? - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

DJTommy

Tap wrote:

0-68: eh
69: Cool

70-100: too good, i don't like it

Or just this.

wooolf

Gender: Male
Age: 45

AfterHours wrote:

The following is an excerpt from my criteria page. Full page is here: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=15503
(...)

One reply to rule them all.. Shocked

You must be a pro reviewer.
Interesting read thx Smile

Important criteria for me are: originality, production value/sound, energy and atmosphere (and how influential they were/are for me personally).
I don't consider historical context or literary merit much when rating music. Except for the 'originality' part of course. One can't evaluate 'originality' without considering what came before Smile

Also, some albums naturally radiate an aura of their 'zeitgeist'-energy. I really love it when that happens.
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My charts page

albumceleste

10- sublime, high artistic achievement
9- brillant overall, reaching the sublime at some particular point
8- brillant, great
7- brillant but inconsistent, or good reaching higher heights at some points
6- really good, solid, consistent
5- mixed bag, or good but flawed
4- formulaic, mediocre overall, irrelevant. Still listeneable or even good in its genre.
3- flawed, weak, unnecesary
2- unfortunately bad
1- fail, facepalm

Currently my average sits around 5+

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

wooolf wrote:

AfterHours wrote:

The following is an excerpt from my criteria page. Full page is here: https://www.besteveralbums.com/phpBB2/v...hp?t=15503
(...)

One reply to rule them all.. Shocked

You must be a pro reviewer.
Interesting read thx Smile

Important criteria for me are: originality, production value/sound, energy and atmosphere (and how influential they were/are for me personally).
I don't consider historical context or literary merit much when rating music. Except for the 'originality' part of course. One can't evaluate 'originality' without considering what came before Smile

Also, some albums naturally radiate an aura of their 'zeitgeist'-energy. I really love it when that happens.

Thanks for the compliments Very Happy

Technically, I'm not a pro reviewer though I'm probably as dedicated/as serious about the art forms of my choosing as many of them. Whether I'm as much of a "pro" as them, I have no idea. Some people have told me as much but I tend to rarely be fully satisfied with my own work and like to keep myself trying to improve. The closest I've come to being a "pro reviewer" is a very extensive Citizen Kane review/analysis (scene-to-scene and/or shot-to-shot throughout the film) that I wrote which, without me even realizing it at first, circulated the internet very rapidly (becoming google #1 for a year or more) and ended up being borrowed and cited and used by various film study classes, professors and so forth. Unfortunately, the site I posted it for suddenly crashed and it doesn't show up anymore. However, I do have most of it saved in complete form (about a third is saved in rough draft form only) and I will re-create it for this site at some point in the future when I am inspired enough (currently I am very focused on Classical music), and will probably update some of it too.

Anyway, glad you got a kick out of my criteria. I dig yours too. I think what's most important for anyone is to use whatever works for you and to stay away from "objective ratings/rankings" in regards to qualitative measures (things like "influence/innovation" can be pretty objective but even that's at least partially dependant on the person's subjective experience of the art form in question).
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Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings

AfterHours

Gender: Male
Location: originally from scaruffi.com ;-)

^^^ What I mainly mean by "staying away from objective ratings/rankings" is to not just rate/rank something highly because it's "considered a masterpiece by every critic/list" but actually experience and find out for oneself if and why it is. By that, I don't mean that it's not perfectly fine to have critics/books (etc) one trusts and uses (which I definitely do, especially Piero Scaruffi), but to then make sure one experiences and decides for oneself as well.

In doing so, I strongly recommend seriously experiencing and evaluating the history of an art form (for instance, many of the most substantial masterpieces in the history of music come from Classical music, more than Rock or Jazz, even though these forms feature several in their own right). I recommend experiencing an art form (whether Rock, Jazz, Classical, Film, Paintings, etc...) as extensively as possible (with time used as wisely as one can towards the more substantial works), while drawing comparisons and conclusions -- and to keep expounding upon this at a challenging but not too uncomfortable rate -- and while doing that, not being afraid to change one's views as one's perspective of history/knowledge of the art form in question changes. An artist's work may seem amazing upon an initial experience, but in some cases may not seem so great after going through many other more substantial works. I recommend not being afraid of that change or of the loss of nostalgia for that "first/early love" -- keeping one's ratings "honest" in the present, based on one's (hopefully) ever-expanding knowledge and experience.
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Best Classical
Best Films
Best Paintings

Last edited by AfterHours on 11/18/2017 23:51; edited 2 times in total

bobbyb5

Gender: Male
Location: New York

wooolf wrote:

Interested in how people translate ratings. Partly to get my own rating-style in order.

for me:
100: Absolutely perfect from start to finish
95: outstanding
90: awesome/groundbreaking
85: great
80: very good
75: good (or 'I understand why people love it' Smile

)
70: 'meh'
65: mediocre/not consistent
60: boring/bland/a chore to listen
50: not good/irritating
40: bad
30: awful
20: will never like
10: don't like a single thing about it
0: unlistenable heap of crap from start to finish

-I haven't rated a single 100 or 0. Have yet to discover the perfect album Smile

-Most of my ratings are 70 or more, just because I won't listen through an album if I don't like it, and it seems wrong to rate an album when I didn't listen to it till the end.

Love to hear your take on this!

This is so fascinating to me because I have to start thinking about this myself. Because I tend to just write things kind of impulsively by emotion rather than any kind of rational or logical system. Which is pretty dumb. I really like your system here. I have a feeling my rating system would be pretty close to yours. The only thing I would argue with is: something doesn't have to be groundbreaking in order to be awesome or in order to have a 90 rating. After all very few things are actually groundbreaking, but they're still great. Most things that people call groundbreaking these days aren't really very groundbreaking at all. And conversely, most things that are groundbreaking actually aren't very good.

wooolf

Gender: Male
Age: 45

bobbyb5 wrote:

This is so fascinating to me because I have to start thinking about this myself. Because I tend to just write things kind of impulsively by emotion rather than any kind of rational or logical system. Which is pretty dumb. I really like your system here. I have a feeling my rating system would be pretty close to yours. The only thing I would argue with is: something doesn't have to be groundbreaking in order to be awesome or in order to have a 90 rating. After all very few things are actually groundbreaking, but they're still great. Most things that people call groundbreaking these days aren't really very groundbreaking at all. And conversely, most things that are groundbreaking actually aren't very good.

Good point there. Groundbreaking doesn't mean a 90 automatically.. What I meant to say there is that if something's is very good AND very original it gets extra points Smile

But if something's original and not very good I also wouldn't consider it groundbreaking..
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bobbyb5

Gender: Male
Location: New York

I also have the problem of not knowing how to rate an album that has huge flaws but you like it anyway. For instance, the lyrics are really bad but the music or the melodies are really great. So should you subtract from your rating because of the flaws? Or should you rate it according to the things you like about it? And another problem I have is, I hesitate to give ratings less than 75. Because I think to myself, "if you don't have anything nice to say about something, then don't say anything."

Romanelli
Bone Swah

Gender: Male
Location: Broomfield, Colorado

Moderator

I don't use ratings. I don't have time for it, and it only muddles things up for me.
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'Fore the devil knows we're dead...

Tha1ChiefRocka
Yeah, well hey, I'm really sorry.

Location: Kansas

Romanelli wrote:

I don't use ratings. I don't have time for it, and it only muddles things up for me.

Bingo.