1 star for Devin Townsend - Terria?
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Topic: 1 star for Devin Townsend - Terria?
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Subject: 1 star for Devin Townsend - Terria?
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 14:51
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I think that rating Devin Townsend - Terria 1 star is ridiculous ... am I alone on this? Edit: I just used this particular album as an example ... there are many other albums that have average ratings of more than 4.50 which receive 1 star reviews. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to: 
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Replies:
Posted By: Gentle Ronnie
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 15:10
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Maybe the person thinks the whole record is laughable bul****. I love Devy, but I think of many popular bands as 1 star worthy, so any opinion is respected, really. ------------- 
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Posted By: Gentle Ronnie
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 15:12
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By the way, Strapping Young Lad is a lot better than Devin Townsend Band, songwriting, not emotion - wise. -------------
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 15:12
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Of course we have to respect any rating for any album ... but the guidelines suggest that especially for 1 and 5 star ratings special care should be applied. I'm simply curious if you would rub your eyes in disbelief when you see this rating for Terria, or if you think "Finally someone had the guts to say it!". ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: Gentle Ronnie
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 15:22
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Well, I would give Terria 4 stars(it's relaxing and nice, but hardly a masterpiece IMO0, so I voted the first option. If somebody gave it one star, then he's either a) a troll interested in lowering the album's average ranking or b) a person who listened to Terria and did not like it. If you mean, that one star rating to great albums is unfair, then I am going to tell you that the whole system of counting votes without reviews is unfair, but what can ya do? -------------
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 15:26
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Yes, I was disappointed when I read that review. But I don't really think that it's unfair. And of course any rating system is flawed, at least if one expects it to be perfectly accurate. All our tastes are different ... So what does it mean? Apparently we still have to read those reviews.
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: Jared
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 15:43
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I can't enter your poll Mike, but it has aroused my interest. Terria has been near the top of my 'to be listened to' list, because I know that so many people like it. This review (which I read as soon as it was posted) now has me even more intrigued. On a personal level, my system may be flawed, but if I really don't like a group, I wouldn't review an album by them, because I would just end up offending people unnecessarily. I also think that no stars should be scrapped altogether, and 1star should be reserved for extremely poor efforts only, as it's quite disrespectful to the artist... ------------- Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson |
Posted By: greenback
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 16:10
first of all, i voted on this poll: i voted: "1 star is a little too low"; that's why I voted 1.5 stars! Terria is not completely crap (0.5 stars), but it is far below any mediocre progressive record rated at 2.5 stars, for example. I carefully studied the situation before getting a 1.5 star, believe me! i noticed that most of the reviewers rated it 5 stars. really true masterpieces of prog metal are albums like symphony x' s wings of tragedy. , dream theater's images & words, shadow gallery's tyranny... but I'm sorry to say Townsend does not work at all for me. some collaborators will have to be able to cope with different opinions; if not, then we should call it fanatism that can lead to unnecessary tension among the community. there are many controversial ratings here like guys who rate collage - moonshine 1 star, or triumvirat - spartacus 1 star, but i think we have to go beyond those things: this is what we call maturity: live and let live! and let me warn you: this low rating from me will probably happen with the band magyar posse! ------------- [HEADPINS - LINE OF FIRE: THE RECORD HAVING THE MOST POWERFUL GUITAR SOUND IN THE WHOLE HISTORY OF MUSIC!> |
fandango wrote:Posted By: King of Loss
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 16:34
Who would ever give Devin Townsend an One? 
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Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 16:56
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It certainly seems suspicious to me, when most reviews give 3 - 5 stars that you have a 1. It simply goes against the grain and is a case of saying " Well I dont like it so Ill show you lot"! ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: FishyMonkey
Date Posted: December 27 2005 at 21:07
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Plus the review doesn't seem to say really very much why greenback doesn't like the album.
This music describes the best what is a monolithic electric guitar! I have never heard a more monolithic electric rhythmic guitar than on this record: that's completely ridiculous! This brutal guitar is so distorted and polluted with tons of useless effects that it takes all the available room! As if it was not enough, the musician seems to take a huge pleasure to exaggeratedly sustain each note, a painful torment for the ears! The rhythmic guitar is COMPLETELY unmelodious. The lead vocals are just simply too angry and aggressive for me. When the lead vocals are more mellow, they amazingly remind me David Gilmour and James LaBrie. There are some good acoustic guitar parts. There are some unconvincing TV or radio sounds, a much worse copy of Roger Waters' effects: they seem too coarsely produced. You can hear some whales-like sounds. There are some rare good passages, so that, globally, this record is not worth a complete listen. The only track that retained more my attention is "Deep peace", starting with an imitation of David Gilmour's voice; an Oldfield-esque guitar solo then begins, followed by an Hillage-esque one, featuring his spacy ambience from the "Green" album; then, it changes to a VERY modest & much slower attempt to emulate the symphonic Yngwie Malmsteen himself. This VERY rebel music is probably perfect for the young people who like disturbing moods. The review in question. Whatever. I initially PMed greenback confused and kinda shocked as well, but primarily because I thought he was a prog reviewer that had suddenly changed his review from a four or five to a one, since I felt like his review complained about pretty trivial things. Still, an opinion is just an opinion. I should know, I rated SEBTP and CttE 3 stars each! ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/FishyMonkey/?chartstyle=artists"> 
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 04:52
Ok ... so if these 1(.499999) stars reflect your true opinion about the album, why did you say in the other thread that another motivation was to get the album down in the chart?
I can cope with different opinions. And please, go ahead with these reviews. People can read my Terria review and then yours, and then freely choose which one is more helpful. Having said that, I still think that it would be useful if we could vote for/against reviews like on amazon. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: Jared
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 05:09
please don't get me wrong, Greenback, I'm not questioning your integrity, your right to a point of view or your ability as a reviewer... It's quite evident however that Terria has a substantial following in this forum, so if I was in your shoes, I would question whether I was the best person to write the review for that particular album... I guess you have to balance out freedom of speech with unpopularity.. At the risk of sounding boring, a similar sitaution happened to me with Ayreon's 'Universal Migrator', which left me completely cold. It is possibly the only album I have heard since joining the forum which I would give the dreaded 1* to, but I don't see the point of causing (any more) offense over the issue...I just feel that any review I would do would be counter-productive. ------------- Music has always been a matter of energy to me. On some nights I believe that a car with the needle on empty can run 50 more miles if you have the right music very loud on the radio. Hunter S Thompson |
. I also understand how you feel about 'Terria'...sometimes, an album just doesn't work for you.... you feel its the sort of thing you probably should like, but it leaves you absolutely cold, and perhaps even gets under your skin. That's fine, it happens to us all every once in a while, and because its music, sometimes its difficult to put into words why you find something quite as awful as you do.Posted By: Jimbo
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 05:25
Just out of curiosity, you actually went and bought an album by Magyar Posse, after hearing the samples that you thought were pure crap...?  (this happened in the
Collab Zone, when we were voting for their inclusion) If so, feel free
to review their albums, but it strikes me a bit weird, that someone
would purposely buy an album he knows he's going to dislike... But
maybe that's just me.  ------------- 
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 05:28
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I did that with Therion - Vovin. Bought it on Ebay for 7 EUR, listened to it about 5 times during about 3 weeks, and then sold it on Ebay - for 5 EUR I think. Ridiculous, isn't it? ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: Jimbo
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 05:36
Well, let's put it this way, with my current money situation, I can't see myself doing that anytime soon...  -------------
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Posted By: BaldJean
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 05:45
it is quite accurate. nothing interesting on this album. and this is NOT because I'm not really a fan of prog metal (I have heard other prog metal that I rather enjoy) but because I really think it is boring and uninteresting and, most of all, NOT really prog. but we have had this debate before. as to other albums with average ratings of 4.5 + and 1 star reviews: de gustibus non est disputandum P.S.: the one star rating was not from me -------------  A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
Posted By: horza
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 06:52
its not a 5 star album in my opinion - but its not a 1 star either - i'm beginning to feel that 1 star albums are few and far between i have given one or two myself and may have been a bit harsh in retrospect  ------------- Originally posted by darkshade: Calling Mike Portnoy a bad drummer is like calling Stephen Hawking an idiot. |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 08:19
I wouldn't mind if you made a 1 star review of Terria - as you said, de gustibus non est disputandum. But I think that it is perfectly ok to discuss the reasoning of controversial reviews, or the motivation of the reviewer - at least if he/she "opens that door" by talking about it in the forum. I admit that it's difficult to discuss reviews without getting personal ... but I decided to talk about this particular review because IMO it is particularly controversial and it was made by a special collaborator. Of course there are also other albums which seem to "call for" such controversial reviews ... Captain Beefheart - Trout Mask Replica for example. The consequence of such reviews is that the guidelines have no meaning anymore. Fanboys are allowed to rate any album 5 stars, people who simply don't like an album are free to rate it 1 star, even when it's obvious that most people who like the genre think of it as a masterpiece or at least a good album. If Terria (or Trout Mask Replica) is rated 1 star by someone, how could that person review Physicist (Safe As Milk) ... -1 stars? There simply is no consistency. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: Drew
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 13:01
Might be in my top 3 albums of all time- I'll leave it at that.
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Posted By: greenback
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 18:25
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------------- [HEADPINS - LINE OF FIRE: THE RECORD HAVING THE MOST POWERFUL GUITAR SOUND IN THE WHOLE HISTORY OF MUSIC!> |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 18:31
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^ allow me to quote one of your posts from another thread:
Hm, that seems to be a little contradictory to me ... but as I said above, you're free to rate it 1 star.
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: greenback
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 18:47
on the other hand, we can avoid abominations like devin townsend - terria to reach the top by rating low those hyper-overrated albums yes, all of us haters, we CAN, but we MAY not, because it would be biased! i do not rate an overrated album low because i want it to lower it in the top list: it means: "i do not waste my time to rate albums 1 star just because i consider them too high in the top charts!"
------------- [HEADPINS - LINE OF FIRE: THE RECORD HAVING THE MOST POWERFUL GUITAR SOUND IN THE WHOLE HISTORY OF MUSIC!> |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 18:50
Ok ... but you did just that. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: cobb
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 20:40
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I have already said all I need to say about this type of spiteful manipulation in the synchestra thread... I wonder if greenback knows the baldies- maybe greenback is even a reincarnation of baldj, who came down pretty heavily on Devin a while back. If this is not the case, I wonder whether greenback is female, as the fairer gender seems to find his music quite obnoxious, for some strange, unknown reason. I do find it ironic that the previous basher of Devin (baldj) was heavily into gaia and there is a song called gaia on synchestra. Could it be possible that Devin reads these threads and this song came about because of that? Nope, I guess not... |
Posted By: transend
Date Posted: December 28 2005 at 23:39
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I could not agree with Baldj more, it is NOT prog and not that good. AND I DO like prog metal, Dreamtheater are one of my fave bands and they include Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, grateful dead and Slayer, yeah, slayer. I was wholly disappointed in 'Terria' AFTER reading all the 4 & 5 reviews of it. I guess we come back to the old adage of 'to each his own'. Everyone is ALLOWED to write respectable reviews, that is what makes this site what it is! Its ALL opinion people, and we all have one!! GIVE you some examples: My fave album is 'Yesshows', most yes fans hate it My least fave Dreamtheater album is 'Train of thought', many fans think of it as their best. I think 'In the court of the crimson king' is BY FAR the most overrated album in this forum, but many would consider stringing me up for saying that... etc etc... |
Posted By: cobb
Date Posted: December 29 2005 at 00:05
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Strange that I agree totally with your examples, but disagree with your assessment of terria - are you female? ps, I am not saying Townsend is a cannot do without artist, but he does (to me) produce good works. And up until Synchestra, they were easily classifiable as progressive. His latest may be just metal... |
Posted By: greenback
Date Posted: December 29 2005 at 00:07
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look, I know the baldies: i was here before their first day! and i do not own a restaurant! i'm not a reincarnation of the baldies, i do not listen to raga, gaia, krautrock or whatever: i just state that terria is not a good prog metal album. period. ------------- [HEADPINS - LINE OF FIRE: THE RECORD HAVING THE MOST POWERFUL GUITAR SOUND IN THE WHOLE HISTORY OF MUSIC!> |
Posted By: Hibou
Date Posted: December 29 2005 at 00:24
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One star, ridiculous? Why? Greenback supported his rating well with a detailed review. I, myself, was blown away last year when I heard the two Townsend streams on PA (War and Hide Nowhere): not particularly my style but I liked what I heard. I had also read rave reviews about Townsend’s albums in general, so eventually I went and bought Terria. I wish Greenback had written his review then, as I trust his judgment completely when it comes to prog. I know exactly what he means when he writes “the guitar is distorted and polluted with tons of useless effects”. After hearing the album, I too was asking myself why the constant drone in the background? Even the supposedly quiet ballads are drowned in a wall of noise (the layered recordings don’t do a thing for me). If, despite the screaming and the aural saturation, you find that Mountain, Earth Day or Canada sound peaceful, I’ll grant your ears are more forgiving than mine. A question of taste, no doubt, as many of you genuinely enjoy the album. But try as I may, I still don’t get the buzz. One star isn’t ridiculous if your rating is sincere. And I tip my hat to Greenback: it takes a lot of guts to say what you think, knowing you’ll spark off some fireworks  .------------- [IMG]http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b311/Progueuse/Album.jpg"> Gene Police: You!! Out of the pool! |
.Posted By: BaldFriede
Date Posted: December 29 2005 at 05:48
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Just to make it clear: Jean and I are NOT reincarnations of greenback, although our tastes are quite similar, but NOT identical. There are some albums we have different opinions about (though I can't name one at the moment; but I distinctly remember I read some reviews where I thought "you are wrong here, greenback"). Even Jean's and my taste are not identical; our opinions about Elvis, for example, could not be further apart. Our opinions about "Terria" are the same though.  -------------  BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
Posted By: Manunkind
Date Posted: December 29 2005 at 05:51
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I'm not gonna say anything new here, but I think it needs to be reminded... I'm wary of 1- and 5-star reviews. They tend to review things that are not there. 1-star reviews tend to review 'good' melodies that are not there, dissonance that is not there, production styles that are not there, vocal styles that are not there etc. etc. etc. 5-star reviews tend to review The Second Coming, Divine Rapture, Nirvana (no jokes please I think a review should be about things that are there. The key question here is - are these things really what they aspire to be? If so, then I think the final rating should be higher rather than lower. The only exception I can think of here is when an album was written with the sole intention of attacking the top of the charts. Even if it really has such potential, it should be considered crap, IMO, since it doesn't really express anything. But even if an album does fulfill its own promise, we still have to judge it according to a higher criterion. I think that here in PA these criteria should be the highest standards set by symphonic, kraut, prog metal and other prog sub-genres. What is the relation between the standards the album set itself and the ones set by the sub-genre it belongs to? Does the album only repeat what was said before? Does it add anything? Does it put the sub-genre masterpieces in a different light? On a more radical note, does it question them successfully? In other words, what does the album 'do' to the sub-genre? If it doesn't do anything or even does damage to it (careful here, it's very easy to let our prejudices get in the way), then the rating should be lower rather than higher. However, if it adds a substantial amount or sets a successful alternative, the rating should be higher rather than lower. Of course the problem of limited room for movement with only 5 stars arises here. Damn it, this should be changed. AFAIK the German prog site Babyblaue Seiten started off with 10 points for the reviews, and now they've expanded it to 15!!! I think this is a good indication of how difficult it is to equate opinions to numbers fairly. Coming back to extreme reviews... I think people who are extremely emotional (negatively or positively) about certain albums simply shouldn't review them, since it seems impossible for them to review the albums with any kind of objectivity. They won't be even able to focus on the album properly - the extremely negative reviewers will find it painful to listen to them, the extremely positive ones will find it painful to even consider rating the album lower than 5. IMO this is why the Inappropriate Reviews thread is so long.
------------- "In war there is no time to teach or learn Zen. Carry a strong stick. Bash your attackers." - Zen Master Ikkyu Sojun |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 29 2005 at 06:23
All I'm saying is that there are very few people who don't like Terria but generally like Prog Metal. So if one is part of that small minority, that person might begin to wonder whether he/she simply doesn't understand Terria, or if all these other people who liked it are idiots. It's a difference if one states that he/she doesn't like an album, or that it is objectively bad.
I have yet to meet a DT fan who thinks of ToT as their best. But it's true that some DT fans hate ToT, and some love it.
Not as many as you think IMO ... KC had many different phases, and there are many fans who just love 1 or 2 of these phases and hate the others. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: cold103
Date Posted: January 13 2006 at 04:48
| Yeah, 1 is too low in my opinion. Terria is my favorite DTB album. |
Posted By: BaldFriede
Date Posted: January 13 2006 at 04:57
I'll gladly support greenback. Though perhaps the one star is inadequate for the album as such, but the biggest inadequacy is the album being in the archives at all, since it is not prog, in my opinion. Not even prog-metal. So what else can one do but give it one star? ------------- BaldJean and I; I am the one in blue. |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: January 13 2006 at 05:10
Agreed. 5 steps are far too limiting. Consider this: When I review several albums of the same artist (or in a very similar style), I try to maintain proper relations between the albums. Example:
Now how do I express this by means of ratings? In the archives I would do it like this:
The problem here is that this is too crude. I think that Infinity is almost as good as Terria, and Accelerated Evolution is really not as good as Infinity. Yet the star rating forces me to make unjust choices. Example with half-stars (10 steps):
This is better ... but not perfect. Example with 15 steps (like on babyblaue-seiten):
Now it looks good. Of course the more albums you want to compare, the more steps you would need in order to assign a different step to each album. But that is not necessary ... it's a subjective decision, but I think that 15 steps are enough. Below I tried to explain these 15 steps (the number in parentheses is the resulting rating in the archives):
------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: Ivan_Melgar_M
Date Posted: January 14 2006 at 00:24
Iván ------------- 
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Posted By: Thufir Hawat
Date Posted: January 14 2006 at 00:52
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I have an album booklet with all the recent Prog albums listed and on it says “Devin Townsend’s most amazing piece of work Yet!”, I have to say that its worth more than one star. ------------- "I can't see through my eye lids" |
Posted By: Hierophant
Date Posted: January 14 2006 at 01:38
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I can understand why greenback gave the album 1 star - if one were to
take away the tremendous amount of effects put on the guitar, and the
layering and layering and layering of devin's voice, we would probaly
have nothing left. Its using alot of smoke and mirrors to try to make
something sound "bigger" than it really is. I actually had a slight
feeling of claustrophobia listening to this one - the music gets really
"stuffy" at times. Extremely atmospheric music does not =
masterpiece. Sure he throws in the odd borrowed rythms here and there
but that's about as interesting as it gets. About this you can't review an album because you don't "want to offend" people is nonsense. You know how much money I saved reading bad reviews? alot. When I examine an album of interest I look at all the bad reviews first to see WHY they didn't like the album and see if I can relate to those reasons ,then I look at the good reviews and see if any of there reasons for liking the album interest me, then I consider buying the thing, my final decision being influenced by a number of different biases, including genre, who the hell is on the album, the album cover (i admit), mp3s if they're available, and past experience with the band. It is impossible to rate an album objectively. Unfortunatly the "OMGZ THIS SUCKS" reviews are just as viable as the "objective" ones where the listener attempts to guage the value of an album by using what he THINKS listeners who "tend" to like "these kind of bands" are looking for. And guess what? these reviewers are usually WRONG ------------- 
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Posted By: transend
Date Posted: January 14 2006 at 19:22
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I do agree with one thing though, and that is what was stated about 1 & 5 reviews, certainly VERY few of the albums deserve 5 stars, I have read a couple of people raving about albums recently in reviews and then say something like "the albums one weak point" or "not a perfect song" etc.. well that album should be bloody PERFECT to get 5 stars, well, thats my opinion anyway.. I seriously think I can give 5 star reviews to maybe 15 -20 albums and I have THOUSANDS. SO FEW albums are PERFECT, most are decent (3 stars) some are great (4 stars) FEW are flawless. |
Posted By: akin
Date Posted: January 14 2006 at 22:36
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Ok, I will carry again the flag of a opinion I had presented before: The end of the Top 100. It generates useless discussions. Don´t know even if it´s necessary to give a rate for the albuns based on the average of all ratings. People will complain because the albnus of their favourite band fell on the chart, like lots of them did when they changed the algorithm and the Dream Theater albuns fell some positions in the chart. It turns to be like supporting a sport team, not really reviewing the album. Another thing, it´s completely pointless try to crucify a reviewer because he gave a bad review to an album. In this case, he explained why he didn´t like and his review was useful. He described the sounds, the main idea of the album. That´s enough for me. I haven´t listened to this album, and I don´t know if I would give 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 stars. But at least, before listening it, I would know what to expect. I always read why a person gave the number of stars. For me, if an album has 4.999999 out of 10000 reviews and they start to say: the guitar sound is heavy, lots of fast guitar and drum solos, screaming vocals, I´ll avoid. If an album has 0.65 out of 3000 reviews and they say something that interests me, maybe I get interested. So this thread is ridiculous, pointless and was made just to generate disagreements and fights. I personally love the 7 "classic" albuns of the Moody Blues, but if someone review them 0 starts, because it´s so slow, mellow, almost not rock, I will understand, if the review is good, the arguments are logic. Because I know that a person will read my review, will read the other person review and will get a conclusion about what to expect. I dislike reviews like a guy made to Close to the Edge: this is as pop as Kylie Minogue, because it doesn´t have the minimum idea about what to expect. Reading this I would think Yes was a boy band. |
Posted By: Hierophant
Date Posted: January 14 2006 at 23:03
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All reviews are subjective - no matter how much "objectivity" the
writer thinks he/she is putting into them. It isn't the reviewers
responsibility to be fair or open minded or even have a good reason to
rate an album 1 star - the reviewer has the right to voice their
opinion no matter how stupid/close minded/harsh it may sound. -------------
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Posted By: Drew
Date Posted: January 15 2006 at 13:31
anyone notice how this album is no longer in the top 100- but at 178?  ------------- |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: January 15 2006 at 14:05
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Reviewers have the right to say (almost) anything about an album. But if the reviewer intends to be taken seriously, he/she will have to try to be objective at least to a certain degree. So I'm not saying that a reviewer should try to be entirely objective - obviously that's impossible. But he should try to review the album in the proper context (genre, similar artists) and try to make his review a helpful resource for people who like that type of music. Example: If you rate a Death Metal album low because you don't like growling, your review will be useless to most people. If they share the reviewer's attitude towards growling, they will not read Death Metal reviews anyway. If they like (or are neutral towards) growling, the review will not help them at all. The bottom line is that IMO a reviewer should try to write a review from the perspective of someone who likes the type of music they're reviewing. Obviously it's easy to review albums you really like, but the really good reviewers also write decent and helpful reviews for albums which they don't like. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: FishyMonkey
Date Posted: January 15 2006 at 15:19
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This thread only goes to show one thing: everyone has an opinion. I find that older, more old-school prog fans hate Terria while the younger crowd tends to love it. And yes, Townsend does pollute his sound with TONS of sound effects, but that's part of the fun of it for me.
Each to his own. This thread should probably be closed, it's pointless. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/FishyMonkey/?chartstyle=artists">
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Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: January 15 2006 at 15:29
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I created the poll ... and I wouldn't take offense if it was closed or deleted. But I think that so far the discussion in the thread has been interesting, and I see no real reason to stop it. ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/release-polls/pa" rel="nofollow - Release Polls Listened to:
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Posted By: FishyMonkey
Date Posted: January 15 2006 at 15:46
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Suit yourself. If that's the case I might as well contribute.
I'd like to know how people think Townsend isn't prog? If you've heard Infinity, that's one of the most progressiev albums ever. What else can go from heavy metal meets big band to a nice waltz to divine power to straight forward heavy metal to stoner Pink Floyd style to pop metal? And Terria...well, the songs are lengthy, progress greatly in feel (how about that breakdown in Deep Peace leading back into the main chorus?), all sound pretty different, use plenty of keyboards and textures to create atmosphere, contain varying emotions all throughout, use all sorts of different vocals... If that's not prog, I don't know what is. Sure, Accellerated Evolution isn't really prog, and Ocean Machine is debatable, as is Synchestra (hardly though), but Terria and Infinity are prog. Now if I told you Nile was prog... ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/FishyMonkey/?chartstyle=artists">
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