Defining the value of "5 star" ratings?

I'd like to start by telling that I'm a (surprise!) music fan, with a habit to rate songs by my own taste and judgement.
And yes, I'm aware of how your definition of the star ratings in Progarchives generally works. But the way I rate the songs is for my personal judgement and not primarily for social purposes.
Of whatever I have in my iPod so far, only around 5% of the songs are rated 5 stars. But a song is usually a brick of the whole wall, like the album, typically. It's easy to be convinced whether a certain song is worthy the highest rating or not, but with albums I find it a pretty different story. In the following paragraph, please excuse me if my statement doesn't make enough sense, I'll try to formulate it out of my wandering thoughts...

You see, there are of course an album you'll find and rate it highly after enough listens, it could be two or a dozen times. Indeed, I have a couple of albums that are rated as among the best in the Progarchives, like Dream Theater's Images And Words. There are also some albums outside the chart that I feel that they're truly worthy of a high rating, between 4-5 stars. Yet, as of this day, I haven't rated a single album by 5 stars yet, because I'm still waiting for something that would deserve its place in the closest territory to my heart. Maybe it's because I'm sort of cynical or put up some personal criterias to solidify my standards, so I'll never rate it that highly until I know it's my thing. There's been a few times I've actually thought that one certain album deserved a 5-star rating due to the golden moments I get after a couple of first listens, but then I withdrew that because of various reasons.
Maybe it's because I rated it out of hype?
Or maybe the album is so profounding that I just couldn't point out what's so great about it in overall?

I've also found some albums that are valued as *masterpieces* by the popularity, but I found it hard to appreciate them from the beginning due to various reasons. Some albums would stay that way, but otherwise they kept growing on me to an appreciated level that I sometimes hate to admit it, something like it's an album I love to hate to love it. (ie. Dream Theater's Images And Words and Seventh Wonder's albums)

So I eventually began to ask myself: How does an album actually deserve a 5 star, by fair reasons?

Almost the same than Snobb... you have to listen to a new album in a good sound system and put it attention... enjoy it just as it is... then try it maybe a couple days after -if you ressist to not hear it over and over again- so you can like something you didn't notice the first time... if you keep wanting to hear it and you like it the same or better than the first time, then you have a potential 4-5 stars... but don't get that part of  albums that you love to hate to love it... a good album is a good album, and if you have doubts that it diserves  5 star, then it doesn't worth it...

I rate an album five star when I'm really attached to it AND it is progressive enough, for it's a essential record for a progressive music collection.

Reasons I find childish for giving fives stars:
1. Historical importance (we all bought this at the time)
2. Authority influences from this site or other progcommunities. (Sometime people say stupid things like "we all know this one of the best progrecords of all time" and the like. I always stop reading right there. This factor is of no importance to me. I myself have to like it and when reading a review I want the opinion of the one who wrote it.)
3. It has no bad songs
4. It has this one great epic
5. This was the best record of this band (that doesn't have to mean it is essential proglistening!).
6. It was released in the eighties, we had nothing better to buy
7. It sounds like Gabriel-era Genesis
8. It's accessible for many people.
9. I happen to know some of the bandmembers (something most wouldn't mention)
10. Robert Fripp played on it, so it must be perfect (this one reviewer rated everything associated with Fripp five stars)
11. I want to compensate for other reviewers their mistakes.

I must honestly say that I realy think much reviewers would never have rated the most well-known classics five stars if they wouldn't have been classics in the first place. Most of the reviews on Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon, Close to the Edge, Thick as a Brick and some others have no information at all.

Yes, in essence I agree with all the contributors above.

My own standards would be: it should be progressive, it should be something special and all of the album should be good. Well, that's the theory, but of the 34 reviews I did, I gave 3 albums five stars, and I must confess that I doubt with two albums if I was right in giving them five stars. I understand fully, Kustin, the high standards which according to you a five star album must have. Still, I think Henry Plainview is right: sometimes one's standards can be unreasonably high.

In my opinion and according to the guidelines, yyou only require 2 conditions:

Edited by Ivan_Melgar_M - November 05 2009 at 12:43

Originally posted by Ivan_Melgar_M In my opinion and according to the guidelines, yyou only require 2 conditions:   1.- Essential Progressive Rock album 2.- Masterpiece: Accordibng to your own criteria.   If an album meets the two parameters, it's a 5 stars candidate, the rest is subjective.   Iván

When all objective standards have been examined, we should probably check our inner compass, ignore the people who could criticize our reviews and rate with our minds and hearts.

I think the strength of the PA system with its many reviewers is that every now and then a reviewer can decide not to give an album like Close To The Edge a five star rating. We shouldn't fall into the trap of group think.  I think the idea of PA is that many reviewers together give a clear image of an album. Prerequisite is that each follows his / her own conviction and couldn't care less about what somebody else would say or think. This is not easy, I know!

I do have the idea that the PA - instruction of thinking clearly before you give an album a 5 - star or 1 -star rating is a good thing. But everything in between in my idea is more or less moderate: collectors only, good or something that puts them apart from the rest.

Is it a good idea at all to PM reviewers that they should modify their ratings, except for when they obviously are missing any healthy balance in their ratings?

Originally posted by kingfriso I rate an album five star when I'm really attached to it AND it is progressive enough, for it's a essential record for a progressive music collection. Reasons I find childish for giving fives stars: 1. Historical importance (we all bought this at the time) 2. Authority influences from this site or other progcommunities. (Sometime people say stupid things like "we all know this one of the best progrecords of all time" and the like. I always stop reading right there. This factor is of no importance to me. I myself have to like it and when reading a review I want the opinion of the one who wrote it.) 3. It has no bad songs 4. It has this one great epic 5. This was the best record of this band (that doesn't have to mean it is essential proglistening!). 6. It was released in the eighties, we had nothing better to buy 7. It sounds like Gabriel-era Genesis 8. It's accessible for many people. 9. I happen to know some of the bandmembers (something most wouldn't mention) 10. Robert Fripp played on it, so it must be perfect (this one reviewer rated everything associated with Fripp five stars) 11. I want to compensate for other reviewers their mistakes. I must honestly say that I realy think much reviewers would never have rated the most well-known classics five stars if they wouldn't have been classics in the first place. Most of the reviews on Wish You Were Here, Dark Side of the Moon, Close to the Edge, Thick as a Brick and some others have no information at all.

I don't really spend too much time worrying about the stars I give to anything.  Why?  First because I often see people give something a half star in their verbage but round down.  Mathematically incorrect.  A long time annoyance for me ever since I started participating and paying attention to this site.  Eh, bigger things to worry about out there.  2 + 2+ = 3?  No 5. I don't think so. The sum of the angles in a triangle add up to 180, I don't care what you say.  How many fingers am I holding up?  I'm not apologizing if I've offended anyone important.  Just please stop it.  Aaaaaggghh. 

I've taken to rating everything as a 4 unless I really have a strong opinion one way or the other, and I don't waste my time reviewing albums I'd give a one star to.  So much music, so little time, why bother even reviewing 1 star albums?  If you buy an album that you consider 1 star even if someone gave it a 5, it's your own damn fault for not sampling it first.

 






Edited by Slartibartfast - November 05 2009 at 14:20

Originally posted by progrules [   Thanks a lot buddy, half of these statements are actually referring to some of my deeds so far !  You're probably provoking once again, aren't you ?   I'll give the examples:   1. In the Court...-KC 3. Under a new Sign-Knight Area / Juggling ...-Enchant / Across the Water-Jadis 4. Flower Power and Paradox Hotel-TFK 6. Ok. not used for 5 starratings but I did use it as an argument in several 4 star cases. 11. Well, I had to bite my tongue (or better finger in this case) not to do this in MANY situations but I manage to control myself most of the time. Other reviewers can be so unfair   But seriously now: I agree with you that you should give your own opinion and not go with the historical value. If we have to rate like that we all become robots and sheep and are expected to follow each other. I would hate that. So I don't agree with Ivan this time because: who actually DECIDES what is an ESSENTIAL progressive work ? The majority ? Those who really have proven themselves in the progressive history (so called conaisseurs) ? I only did this (give 5 stars because of historical significance) once with KC's debut and that was out of sheer respect for the genre. But I will not do this again, all my other 5 starratings are personal opinions and I don't care if 100 others give one star and that's how it's supposed to be. Just my opinion ...

To be honest I think I must have some of these five star ratings myself . We all have our emotions. I fellt Kayak was misunderstood on this site and I was mild on Tull's Heavy Horses because my girlfriend likes it so much.

Furthermore I'd like to react to the statement that an essential progrecord needs to be accepted as such by the community. If the community decides what is a masterpiece for the induvidual our opinion's would be useless, it's the other way around!

As a conclusion I would like to say the term 'essential' should be interpretated as an emotion. No music is essential for humanity, but you might feel an album is essential for you as a person. That would however still be an emotion.