Ballad Of Big (track)
by Genesis
Year: 1978
From the album ...And Then There Were Three (track #3)
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Ballad Of Big appears on the following album(s) by Genesis:
- ...And Then There Were Three (track #3) (this album) (1978)
- 1976-1982 (track #20) (compilation) (2007)
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Ballad Of Big ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
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Showing latest 3 ratings for this track. | Show all 68 ratings for this track.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Track ratings | Avg. track rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 4 days ago | timosbuecherei | 3,556 | 60/100 |
| ! | 06/07/2026 09:32 | dukeboxkool | 8,680 | 74/100 |
| ! | 05/21/2026 17:31 | Siromynian | 20,040 | 71/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some tracks can have several thousand ratings)
This track has a Bayesian average rating of 74.7/100, a mean average of 74.0/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 74.5/100. The standard deviation for this track is 10.8.
Ballad Of Big forum mentions
Ballad Of Big comments
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Squonk007 04/09/2021 08:08 | #268369
I quite like this, it's a little quirky. As ever the drumming is very good from Phil and the guitars are unusual. I'd have preferred a much more definitive statement for the end rather than a fade out but by and large a nice track.
An odd song, but not a bad one. Just odd. The strangest thing about it has to be the stark contrast between the odd verses and the even verses. The odd verses are really cool with their swinging swagger, powered by Collins' cutting vocals, Rutherford's guitar riffing and Banks' guitar-synths. But the odd verses only take up a little bit of the song. More time is dedicated to the even verses, which are pretty much just generic stomping prog. Not bad, but not nearly as cool as the odd verses. If you isolated the odd and even verses from each other, you would think they're from two different songs. The lyrics are also a bit too corny, essentially telling the story of a big cowboy guy who gets mad easily and dies because of his hubris. Overall, the song feels a little unfinished, but the end product isn't bad at all. If they just formulated the entire song around the feel of those odd verses, this would have had a chance to be And Then There Were Three's standout tune. But as it stands, it just feels a little out of place.
