5 star rating

Lately I've been noticing numerous reviews on the main page with 5 stars. Even without knowledge of the albums that "earned" 5 stars, a blind man can see that this can't be the purpose. 5 stars should be exceptional, only for great prog albums that stand the test of time. I have the impression a lot of people use the 5 star rating when they like the album. To my opinion this would be a 3 star rating. 4 stars is justified when the artist adds something special and 5 stars would only be for masterpieces. When we use the 5 star rating constantly, it will be hard for readers to sort out which albums are really outstanding.

What do you think ?  

micky wrote: Fishy wrote: Lately I've been noticing numerous reviews on the main page with 5 stars. Even without knowledge of the albums that "earned" 5 stars, a blind man can see that this can't be the purpose. 5 stars should be exceptional, only for great prog albums that stand the test of time. I have the impression a lot of people use the 5 star rating when they like the album. To my opinion this would be a 3 star rating. 4 stars is justified when the artist adds something special and 5 stars would only be for masterpieces. When we use the 5 star rating constantly, it will be hard for readers to sort out which albums are really outstanding. What do you think ?   Honestly... I ignore those kind of reviews.  It doesn't take long to figure out, who is actually doing 'meaningful' reviews, and who is not.  In  that sense if a reader is really looking for input on an album...read the reviews.  If they don't say much.... they aren't worth much.

On the other hand, you gotta appreciate those who can get to the point, nice and fast. Sometimes, most of the time actually, the reviewer just summerizes each song, not really explaining whats good or bad, and in the end not letting the person reading the review experience the album for themself's.

I hate looking at a review for an album I haven't listened to yet, just to see if it is worth getting, and when I'm done reading I end up knowing what's gonna happen because the person wrote a legnthy review that looked good and fancy, but just summerizing each song.It is hard looking for a good review if you just only want to know if the album should be checked out or not, especially if you don't want to know what happens in the music.

The short reviews can be good sometimes. Don't let the legnth of a review fool you.

Edited by Rust

Rust wrote: micky wrote: Fishy wrote: Lately I've been noticing numerous reviews on the main page with 5 stars. Even without knowledge of the albums that "earned" 5 stars, a blind man can see that this can't be the purpose. 5 stars should be exceptional, only for great prog albums that stand the test of time. I have the impression a lot of people use the 5 star rating when they like the album. To my opinion this would be a 3 star rating. 4 stars is justified when the artist adds something special and 5 stars would only be for masterpieces. When we use the 5 star rating constantly, it will be hard for readers to sort out which albums are really outstanding. What do you think ?   Honestly... I ignore those kind of reviews.  It doesn't take long to figure out, who is actually doing 'meaningful' reviews, and who is not.  In  that sense if a reader is really looking for input on an album...read the reviews.  If they don't say much.... they aren't worth much. On the other hand, you gotta appreciate those who can get to the point, nice and fast. Sometimes, most of the time actually, the reviewer just summerizes each song, not really explaining whats good or bad, and in the end not letting the person reading the review experience the album for themself's. I hate looking at a review for an album I haven't listened to yet, just to see if it is worth getting, and when I'm done reading I end up knowing what's gonna happen because the person wrote a legnthy review that looked good and fancy, but just summerizing each song.It is hard looking for a good review if you just only want to know if the album should be checked out or not, especially if you don't want to know what happens in the music. The short reviews can be good sometimes. Don't let the legnth of a review fool you.

points taken... I did sort of ramble on about length, and  missed on my point that with a bit of reading you can tell those are 'gushing' about favs (the 5 stars to albums that are nowhere near classics of the genre), aand those are trying to give an objective view of the albums.  I'm thinking about trying my hand at some reviews but not sure how I want to do them yet.  I guess I got sort of bent when checking on an 'official bootleg' Magma album I wanted to order, someone reviewed it... but neglected to say anything about it.  What's the point of reviewing it...  Got it anyway.... excellent album, and will be my first review I do here.

I hate seeing undeserved 5 star reviews (and 1 star for that matter) for some albums. I think some people get a bit too out of hand, and give 5 stars to anything that pleases them. However, in saying that, I mainly reviews albums I like and I feel that the five star ratings i've given to albums eg. Foxtrot, Larks Tongues in Aspic, Close to the Edge, Relayer, Brain Salad Surgery, The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, A Farewell to Kings.... and believe it or nor, Flying Teapot.

Micky, I wonder if you seen any of my reviews? Would that be an example of a bad or uninformative review? I would like you to tell me if that's what you think. I try to do my reviews as best I can while still being fair to the album. I've made some mistakes that I now regret though  

Well, it´s hard to discuss reviews because people tend to write what they would like to read. Some like to write a description of the songs, some like to write what they consider the highlights of the album. Some describe the best songs and give an overview of the whole album. All of them are valid. The objective is to have lots of reviews. Sometimes it´s good to know more or less how the song sounds, because we can never know, talking about progressive rock, but sometimes the gorgeous descriptions makes the interest grow.

About giving five stars, I don´t think people really cares about the album being a masterpiece or not, because being a masterpiece or not is in the eye of beholder (Picasso´s paintings are masterpieces to some and just lots of lines scrambled for others). But what I think is that people  have to keep in mind that less than ten percent of the albuns the person has deserve five star. Most of then deserves four. Many times I reviewed an album as four of five stars and then decreased the rating by one star because after hearing more 100 albuns, I realized that the album is not that masterpiece.

My criteria is: 1 star to albuns that make me bored/nervous. 2 stars to albuns that have something good but the overall isn´t good. 3 stars to good albuns in general. 4 stars to great albuns, that I like very much. And 5 stars to the albuns I really enjoy, think they are a masterpiece (for me) and that keep on returning very often to my record player (although I buy 10 to 15 albuns/month). I think it is fair. With rare exceptions, most of my favourite bands have only two masterpieces among 15 or 20 albuns. Of course I most of the albuns I rated first are my favourites, but now most of my reviews are of 3 or 4 star albuns.