5 star ratings

I prophesy disaster wrote: wiz_d_kidd wrote: Give more weight to people who write reviews rather than just clicking on a rating.   Actually, perhaps ironically and based on what has already been said in this thread, an argument can be made that one should give less weight to people who write reviews and more weight to those who just clicked on a rating. This is because reviews are biased towards higher ratings due to the tendency to only write reviews for albums that are liked, in contrast to ratings only, which due to the ease of clicking on a rating, is more likely to produced a balanced average.

Edited by moshkito - October 30 2019 at 06:48

thief wrote: I still haven't written a 5-star review, but then again I only did ~25-30 reviews. I definitely agree with the premise, 5 star rating should be awarded sparingly... But I could see some bias when it comes to dearest bands, life-chaning stuff. For example, if I were to review King Crimson's catalogue, I'd have a hard time not to give a 5 star rating to all 1969-73 releases, especially for the fact how they resonated with me in the past. Even today, I find pretty much all these albums five star worthy... All in all, I presume there would be 30+ albums I'd grant five stars without a question, not counting stuff that shouldn't really be on Progarchives (technical extreme metal, jazz, 70s hard rock etc.)

I've awarded about 18 albums with 5 stars and could easily double that amount but at least were not into the multiple 100s. Some albums do warrant it.

I've reviewed or rated every Fairport Convention album, about 40 studio albums, with about 3 being 5 star reviews but I must admit that it was difficult as I've had to listen to some of the clunkers more then a few times. At least it's done, but I wish a few others would review these albums in order to have a broader view of the albums that only I reviewed.

Edited by SteveG - October 30 2019 at 08:23

Psychedelic Paul wrote: SteveG wrote: I've reviewed or rated every Fairport Convention album, about 40 studio albums, with about 3 being 5 star reviews but I must admit that it was difficult as I've had to listen to some of the clunkers more then a few times. At least it's done, but I wish a few others would review these albums in order to have a broader view of the albums that only I reviewed. I won't be reviewing any albums by Fairport Convention because they're too conventional.   Seriously though, if I were to review their albums, I'd give the first album with Judy Dyble a four star rating and all of Sandy Denny's albums with Fairport a four star rating too. After that classic period though, I wasn't keen on Fairport Convention's output without a female lead singer, so they'd rank as three star albums for me at best.   Can I rate an album without needing to write a review for it?

You would rate Full House with Thompson and Swarb at the top of their game at 3 stars? That kinda figures.

Psychedelic Paul wrote: SteveG wrote: Psychedelic Paul wrote: SteveG wrote: I've reviewed or rated every Fairport Convention album, about 40 studio albums, with about 3 being 5 star reviews but I must admit that it was difficult as I've had to listen to some of the clunkers more then a few times. At least it's done, but I wish a few others would review these albums in order to have a broader view of the albums that only I reviewed. I won't be reviewing any albums by Fairport Convention because they're too conventional.   Seriously though, if I were to review their albums, I'd give the first album with Judy Dyble a four star rating and all of Sandy Denny's albums with Fairport a four star rating too. After that classic period though, I wasn't keen on Fairport Convention's output without a female lead singer, so they'd rank as three star albums for me at best.   Can I rate an album without needing to write a review for it? You would rate Full House with Thompson and Swarb at the top of their game at 3 stars? That kinda figures.   Yes, I've listened to the "Full House" album in full and I couldn't honestly give it better than a three star rating because I don't rank it nearly as highly as the three Sandy Denny Fairport albums that preceded it. Conversely, you may not like some of the albums I awarded the full five stars to in my recent reviews, but that's okay.

Call me a Philistine if thou wilt, who would not know a top of the game if it hit me hard in the top of my head (or can't divorce my subjective experience from an objective analysis), but I both prefer and would rate the earlier albums higher myself. Liege & Lief and Unhalfbrickling have been my favourites.   They resonate more with me; therefore, I would rate those higher.

I like the debut a lot too, but it's quite different. I might argue too that Lief and Lief might be more likely to engage from a progressive folk perspective than Full House and therefore be more likely to appeal to a Prog audience (not that one is asked to follow prog expectations in the descriptions for the albums of acts included in Prog Related). I could be wrong as it's been a while since I last listened to Full House, but that was my impression, and I would have given it a three star rating myself.

Liege and Leaf has been top of Fairport Convention's game for me (ah, but I am a lowly gamin) based on the first five -- I don't know other FC albums as well --, but that is a subjective statement, and l'm not comfortable making such qualitative statements. Even L&L would only get a four from me, simply because I'm more into other folk of folky acts in PA such as Spiroyra, Comus, Perry Leopold, Catherine Ribeiro + 2 Bis as well as Alpes,, Linda Perhacs, Vashti Bunyan, Pentangle, The Incredible String Band, Trees, Forest, Jan Dukes de Grey, Sergius Golowin, Tim Buckley, These Trails, Third Ear Band, Pearls Before Swine, It's a Beautiful Day, Faun Fables.... And outside of PA, I'd rate Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Extradition's Hush, Mark Fry's Dreaming With Alice, The Wicker Man soundtrack, the first two Exuma albums, and various others higher too.

Fairport Convention does seem rather too conventional to me often. To each his or her own tastes and ratings.

Going off on some tangents to that: Some, I have too, have adjusted their ratings in accordance with what they see as the general consensus of an album's worth, but I don't find value in that. That just perpetuates a canon of seeming quality, even if not really deserved, or at least deserved according to your tastes. So, for instance, I don't much like Yes' Close to the Edge album -- I would not like to give it five stars despite an almost mythical status amongst many here. For my tastes it would be a two, but I probably would give it a three. Not being much of a fan of a lot of mainstream Prog, I also would rate those lower per my tastes. When one strives to be objective by basing one's ratings on how one finds other's perceive the quality of it, or how one thinks others will rate the merit, that can be a less than satisfactory strategy. Describing the qualities is better than making claims of quality if trying to be objective.

Just because one claims that Full House as the peak of FC, does not mean that I should not find (no need for a claim) Liege & Lief to be the peak and adjust my ratings to fit better with another's opinions (I'm not in the minority in that case). I like sincerity, and honestly rating it by how much you enjoy it seems preferable to me than trying to follow the herd and fit in.

On another note: I would rather avoid reading other's critiques before I write my own because I wouldn't want to be too influenced by others opinion (or risk being less original in my writing). If I'm working on, say, a research paper, I take a different approach.

Edited by Logan - October 30 2019 at 11:27

Logan, you have remarkably similar tastes in Acid/Psych-Folk to mine because I like all of those artists you mentioned in your third paragraph above. The only artist I hadn't previously heard of or listened to are  Faun Fables, although I'm sure I would like them too.

^^ It's too conventional for me, and yes, I had read your post and that was a deliberate reference to it. I appreciate parallelism and references when posting-- it helps to make a thread gel.

SteveG wrote: I didn't say that Fairport was at their peak with Full House, only that Swarbrick and Thompson were, as players actually, and particularly as a songwriting duo. They were stellar. What constitutes Fairport's peak is open depending on which of group musicians made up certain lineups. I prefer the Full House line up over the Liege and Leif line up but only Mondays and Wednesdays. I flip back to the L&L lineup when I hear the album.     But this is what differentiates you and Paul from me. I'm not a Fairport Convention fan and never was. I do appreciate folk rock and prog folk and that's why I reviewed their albums. Not really caring for the group, I still rated 3 of their albums with 5 stars. I may not have liked them but I know genius when I hear it. And when I don't.

Okay, all that writing and thought, and I misunderstood you.

Some have made the argument that one should only give 5 stars to one album of an act, actually I think it was me being contrarian at one time, which is the one the rater deemed to be the truest masterpiece. I wouldn't do it that way, especially since many bands take new directions from album to album. Album one by X might be a masterpiece of Baroque, album two might be a masterpiece of punk/ crunk, album three of death metal/ grindcore, album four country-western, album 4 Chinese opera, and album 5 consists of advertising jingles, and each is as worthy of praise in its own way.

There is no one right approach.

I respect Fairport Convention more than I like it, but I do like it. It's rather too conventional/ mainstream for me, and the act is not quite as eclectic as I might wish. I commonly prefer more "out-there" folk music, and also more pastoral folk music. I much prefer a huge amount of folk music (I'd take Donovan over it and a great many others). I recognise that the music is very well-made as well, and that would be reflected in my rating, but more importantly it would be reflected in my review if I wrote one.

I wouldn't write reviews of Fairport Convention (well, unless someone paid me in which case I would) as there are others of which I would rather bring attention. I might write a review for These Trails at some time as it has no reviews, or ratings in PA. I love it, but would give it only a four as I do see flaws, and it is more of a curiosity.

I love the famously bad, primitive as it is sometimes called, album The Shaggs' Philosophy of the World and don't know how I'd rate it. If it magically appears on April 1st, and I find the time, I may give it a glowing five star review extolling the excellence of the musicianship and composition, and try to make my review seem as erudite as possible.

I would much rather have my ratings and reviews separate. With film, I preferred review sources that did not rate the films in the reviews.

I'd rather my ratings purely reflect on my tastes. Looking at my reviewer page tells people about the kind of music I've been into, well mostly from a decade ago, and so if another has similar tastes, they might easily find a kindred spirit and use my ratings as some guide -- as I did with a member called Rocktopus; his ratings influenced my musical exploration. I also find such lists useful for forum activities, since I can better recommend music that fits someone's tastes if I have a list as a reference.

Looking at an individual's ratings is a little window into people's psychology, I might say. I'd rather the rating tell me about the individual's taste, and in a review they can be more objective by writing about specific qualities of the music, reference points etc. I like reviews best that describe the music well, and mention similar music, so I can more readily tell if it's going to be something of interest to me, and If I like that what other music I should look into. As for the ratings as recommendations, at least in PA, I want to see if their tastes seem to match mine, so if I, say, see a five star rating for an album I adore, I may look to the reviewer's page to see how well our tastes match by glancing through the ratings. If people don't rate according to their appreciation, then such lists of ratings are not as useful to me.

I do commonly prefer it when people rate according to their enjoyment as it has worked better with my strategies for discovering music and getting to know forum member's tastes more easily. To be honest, I rarely bother reading reviews (I generally would prefer brief descriptions of the music). The reviews I tend to dislike are those that seem to be telling me what to think and feel about the music, and some ridiculous ones that present their opinions mathematically to justify the rating, and make subjective statements as if they were objective (something I don't like in forum posts either).

Edited by Logan - October 30 2019 at 12:34

SteveG wrote: You don't like subjectivity? My Dear Chap, you might be in the wrong place.

yeah I'm guessing that's one area where Pedro and I are in total agreement.  Basing a rating on the mathematical average of each song's ratings is as anti-art as you can get

^ oh I knew it was you, Greg.  Your mentioning of the mathematical formula for rating reminded me how much I abhor even seeing it in a review.   I suppose there is nothing specifically wrong with rating each song but the idea that the album rating can be inferred from the average of the individual song ratings is something only an entirely left brained person could accept, and I would surmise that the quality of the review itself might reflect that