Rating vs Ranking discrepancy - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

antiloopje

Age: 31

Hello all

While browsing this site, I've found that there is quite a big discrepancy between the albums we rate high & the albums we rank high on our charts. The best example may be

Kind of Blue: ranked 45th, but rated a 88/100, worth the 10th spot

Other examples are:

The Court of the Crimson King (70 up to 22),
London Calling (11 down to 26),
Nevermind (6 down to 30),
A Love supreme [John Coltrane] (117 up to 36),
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady [Charles Mingus] (179 to 36 !!! ).

One other thing I noted is that the albums that move UP have relatively spoken less voters. While albums that move down have a bit more voters than the surrounding albums.

What do you guys think this could mean? Does it means that Nevermind is added high in the charts, but rated less high by a bigger group of people? And what with the Jazz albums? Why don't they appear on the charts even though they're clearly liked by a big group.

I'd be pleased to hear your opinions.

Dingerbell

Gender: Male
Age: 27

Some people exclude jazz albums from their charts. I did- although it's recently been changed.

The albums that tend to be the highest positions on the main chart are those which have the most listeners- and therefore, more people hear them and so, they are more likely to have them on their chart.

This means the overall chart is more popularity than quality, as it rewards those albums with the most listeners.

JMan

Dingerbell wrote:

Some people exclude jazz albums from their charts. I did- although it's recently been changed.

The albums that tend to be the highest positions on the main chart are those which have the most listeners- and therefore, more people hear them and so, they are more likely to have them on their chart.

This means the overall chart is more popularity than quality, as it rewards those albums with the most listeners.

Exactly, a popularity contest. Also, excluding jazz is a weird rule for charts.

Dingerbell

Gender: Male
Age: 27

JMan wrote:

Also, excluding jazz is a weird rule for charts.

I, personally, always felt it was very difficult to compare them to rock albums. It's, for me, like comparing a dessert to a main course when thinking of your favourite food. It's just too difficult.

Puncture Repair

Dingerbell wrote:

I, personally, always felt it was very difficult to compare them to rock albums. It's, for me, like comparing a dessert to a main course when thinking of your favourite food. It's just too difficult.

It is, but if you don't include Jazz on your chart you're killing it on this site. Every little helps.

sp4cetiger

Dingerbell wrote:

I, personally, always felt it was very difficult to compare them to rock albums.

I find it difficult to compare just about any two great albums. Razz

JMan

Let's get back on topic. You see, most of the albums here on the site are not based on what the average person buys, but rather what music buffs like. Nirvana is a combination of both, selling more than 20,000,000 albums and being a top 10 album on just about every website. But the CRITICS love it, so people try out these albums that critics seem to love. But there's always a difference of opinion, so you never know how well recieved an album is until you calculate the average ratings.

Most of the highest selling albums are acclaimed, but not necessarily in top 100 charts, such as Bat OPut of Hell. 40,000,000 copies and yet the album is usually in the top 300 or 400. Cher's Believe was not well recieved but it sold 20,000,000 because of the hits, especially the title track, and Cher's large following. Shania Twain has the highest selling country album of all-time, really for that one hit called "Man I Feel Like a Woman." It got only decent ratings.

Anyway, I don't think I added much to this topic, but things vary. Sales ≠ Popularity ≠ Rating.

meezus

I thought the reason that there may be discrepancies between an album's rating and its rank on the overall chart is simply that the overall chart is calculated based on an album's frequency/positions on critic and user charts, and not based on its ratings. So, even if an album consistently gets a 95/100 rating, for example, but is not on anyone's charts, it wouldn't be on the overall BEA chart. I think it's a pretty simple explanation. Am I wrong in this?

Edit: Nevermind... I thought the OP was asking a more technical question. I re-read it and realized it's more theoretical.

Guest

meezus wrote:

I thought the reason that there may be discrepancies between an album's rating and its rank on the overall chart is simply that the overall chart is calculated based on an album's frequency/positions on critic and user charts, and not based on its ratings. So, even if an album consistently gets a 95/100 rating, for example, but is not on anyone's charts, it wouldn't be on the overall BEA chart. I think it's a pretty simple explanation. Am I wrong in this?

Edit: Nevermind... I thought the OP was asking a more technical question. I re-read it and realized it's more theoretical.

Of course, the highest rating an album can get with 1 vote (thanks to the way ratings are calculated) varies from 78-80 depending on what the average site rating is at the time. The highest an album can get with 50 votes is around 85. Really, a large number of votes is required to get past 90, and even then not all of the user ratings will be over 80. I don't know how the formula works entirely, but I think even with a few lower ratings it is possible for an album to one day get a perfect 100. It may take thousands of ratings, though.

meezus

JMan wrote:

Of course, the highest rating an album can get with 1 vote (thanks to the way ratings are calculated) varies from 78-80 depending on what the average site rating is at the time. The highest an album can get with 50 votes is around 85. Really, a large number of votes is required to get past 90, and even then not all of the user ratings will be over 80. I don't know how the formula works entirely, but I think even with a few lower ratings it is possible for an album to one day get a perfect 100. It may take thousands of ratings, though.

Yeah, I admit I've never really understood (and still don't) why an album or chart's average rating always seems to skew so much lower than its individual ratings. But this site seems to be so logical and well-built, so I just trust it and try not to think too much about it. Razz