February Song Rating Extravaganza

[Fergenaprido]

As was identified in the Suggestions forum, we have a very lopsided list of top tracks on BEA which seem to be limited to a select number of top albums, leaving out many great tracks on some not so great albums. There have been previous threads to identify these songs, but they don't seem to be reflected on the site's statistics.

The easiest way to rectify this? Rate more songs! Perhaps the most obvious way would be to simply rate all the songs on the albums that you have listed in your charts, and this is something that I strongly encourage everyone to do.

But another way I'd like to try is this:

During the month of February (for 5 weeks, technically Jan 29 to Mar 3) I would like to highlight 25 albums that deserve more recognition than they currently receive. Not that they necessarily deserve to be higher on the chart, but that they should be more well-known by people on BEA. I will ask for suggestions from you folks as to which albums to highlight, and then I will post 5 albums per week for 5 weeks (roughly one album per day, then, with weekends off ) that we should all try and listen to and then rate the tracks (and album) on BEA. Each week I will post the current ranks and ratings of each album, and then update at the end of the week so we can see what kind of an impact we are having. Hopefully everyone will get the chance to listen to at least one album per week.

I know albummaster is concerned about people just rating for the sake of doing so without actually listening to the songs, and I want to discourage this. Part of what I hope to show by displaying the ratings is that attempts to play the system don't work, especially the more votes you have. Right now, the top 10 rated albums have an average of 800 votes or so, tracks are at 200 votes, and artists at 100.

Albums that are not eligible:
Any album in the top 100 overall chart
Any album by an artist with an album in the top 20 overall chart (i.e. Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Beatles, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Clash, Arcade Fire, Beach Boys, Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, Pixies, David Bowie)
Any album that has more than an average of 10 votes per track (since 10 is the minimum number needed for tracks to appear on the top-rated chart)

You have until Friday to nominate albums, and hopefully Saturday night I'll get a chance to post the list. I'll pick the albums from the list of nominations, and I'll try to balance it out so that 1-3 US, 1-2 UK, and at least one other album are featured each week to balance things out. You can nominate as many different albums by an artist as you'd like, but I won't likely highlight any artist more than twice.

In the end, if this is successful, maybe we can continue it, but the main message is this: Please vote, not just for albums, but also for tracks and artists. It's hard to say that we are a top-notch site that deserves to be respected by all of the internets, when our top-choice album has barely 1100 ratings, and our top-choice song 300. Since we have over 12,000 users, that means that less than 10% of the community has even bothered to rate the top-ranked album, and less than 2.5% for the top-ranked song.

Thanks for listening.

Edit: fixing my math

[Guest]

I'd love to. Should we post our nominations in this thread?

[Romanelli]

Cool deal! Will be happy to participate as much as I can!

I read that thread, and decided that something I could try to do (I started today) is this.

I work from home a lot, and listen to a lot of albums. But I also listen to a lot of Pandora as well. So when I have time to, when a song plays on Pandora, I search for it on this site. If it's here, I'll rate and comment (if I have one) on that song, then the next. For me, it's a good way to think in terms of the individual song rather than the album as a whole.

It's not going to result in a ton of song ratings, but I think it's a good way for me to rate songs as I go. I also plan to go through my collection on an ongoing basis and try to get all of the songs in my collection rated...which is going to be a huge task.
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'Fore the devil knows we're dead...

[Fergenaprido]

[Guest]

Alright, here are my nominations:

Images and Words - Dream Theater
Leviathan - Mastodon
Rated R - Queens of the Stone Age
Permanent Waves - Rush
Badmotorfinger - Soundgarden

[GARY]

Love it Fergenaprido, I'm in


Here are my 5 albums


(1) Let's Go - The Cars
(2) Heart - Heart
(3) Tumbleweed Connection - Elton John
(4) I Robot - Alan Parsons Project
(5) Defenders of The Faith - Judas Priest
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I owe $100,000 and wasted 4 years of my life.

And all I got was this silly hat



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[junodog4]

My nominations:

1. Acme - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
2. Mermaid Avenue - Wilco and Billy Bragg
3. Quality Control - Jurassic 5
4. One Chord to Another - Sloan
5. Welcome to the Monkeyhouse - Dandy Warhols

Great idea!

[sgraham1990]

Sounds like a fun idea. I would like to nominate these three albums:

The Glass Passenger - Jack's Mannequin
Century Child - Nightwish
Home - Dixie Chicks

[GARY]

[videoheadcleaner]

The Cure - Faith
Elbow - Asleep In The Back
Something For Kate - Echolalia
Talk Talk - The Colour Of Spring
The Trifiids - Calenture