Who is the best reviewer with 10000 listens?

Voted for 3.

^ By "proper focus" I was just assuming that in order to count for this thought experiment, a "listen" would have to be deliberate in the sense that you're paying attention to the music as opposed to just having it play in the background, and you focus on the music enough to be able to recall specific information about it afterwards. 

^ Well, in a way I've "rigged" the poll to turn out that way (everyone voting option 3). I didn't do it on purpose, I just thought of Malcolm Gladwell's outliers where he talks about 10000 hours of practice being necessary for anyone to achieve mastery in a certain skill. And being a metrically oriented individual, I chose to divide 10000 hours/listens into 1, 10, 100, 1000 and 10000 releases (I left out the first opion by mistake).

Edited by MikeEnRegalia - June 30 2023 at 04:13

I'd say, like all others who voted, "listened to 1000 albums, but 10 times each." Some who just consumes albums without taking them in a deep way, the fast food lover of music, over multiple spins and time, is I think unlikely to be a good reviewer (or rater). And I think that the type who listen to lots and commonly will just listen once is not getting the chance to acclimate to albums but also is less likely to ever fully pay attention to all the albums they are listening to -- a lot might just tune into a bit of an album and then tune out if it does not grab them immediately or if it is not a style that they are accustomed to or appreciate.

That said, I don;t think one needs to listen to an album many times to review it, and I might be okay with a few. I know that I often would be more excited to review an album while it is still fresh for me. Never-the-less, while one need not listen to all albums many times, I do think that having an intense fervour for music, or at least a real affection for some music tends to be a plus, and that means not just playing lots of albums for the sake of playing lots of albums or for the sake of writing lots of reviews.

I wrote film reviews for a time for the local newspaper (the free delivered door-to-door kind), and I disliked it. I had to go to press/ special film screenings and then write my review later that evening. You'd see the "critics" scribbling notes as it played. You miss so much that way and it becomes such a mechanical, lifeless and joyless process. When I wrote essays for university on film, then I would watch films again and again, and although I chose ones I loved, I hated them by the end due to the multiple watched and analysis. Writing reviews tends to kill my enjoyment of art, but I digress.

^Yes I've "listened" to well over 10 000 albums in total (but probably closer to 2000 in full. I do give up on stuff, but I'm no reviewer). My physical collection is probably 15-20% of that (and digital maybe 30-40%... I don't know. A lot:)... out of those there's probably about 5-600 albums in some kind of rotation - and about 100 extra special "desert island discs". Not sure what we're discussing though. My reply is that I think the best listener/reviewer is a combination of option 3 and 4.

I'd say a combination of the third and fourth option. I think a good rewiever has know A LOT of varied music. But what's the point of it all if you're not extra passionate about some artists & albums in particular? Something you know by heart and often revisit.

A simple thought experiment - what do you think? Which distribution of 10000 listens produces, hypothetically, the best reviewer, with all other factors being equal?

Edited by MikeEnRegalia - June 29 2023 at 06:04