Applying ratings

I am thinking about posting a review and have been wondering if there is any core wisdom on how to interpret the ratings descriptors relative to subgenres or the site as a whole.

Specifically, the descriptor for 5* is "Essential: a masterpiece of rock music". There are many albums under "Progressive Electronic" that I think it would be a real stretch to describe as "rock" or essential to rock, though I affirm the rationale for them being genetically related to "prog" and they might be excellent on their own terms. So I think there's a difference between "essential to a progressive rock collection" and "a masterpiece of a very specific subgenre" (like ambient).

Even more specifically I am looking at an album listed here that is very clearly electronic ambient/drone, in my view brilliant, yet it feels weird to claim that it's an essential rock album. (However brilliant it is on its own terms, skipping it can hardly mean the same thing in terms of a prog collection as, say, skipping Close to the Edge, because the subgenre is more peripheral.)

I know reviewers are all making their own choices, and that any rating system is weird, but as someone considering being a new reviewer I am curious whether there is any established wisdom as to whether "essential" is supposed to mean "essential to progressive rock in general" or "essential to the specific subgenre"? Is it meant to be about relevance or just quality? That way maybe I can contribute minutely to order rather than chaos when I rate :-).

Thanks. I figured there was a lot of individual difference in approach. I do find myself using rating average to scan the discographies of artists to decide where to dive in. And with some of the albums I am considering reviewing there are no prior reviews. Maybe the best tack is just to make sure the rationale is explicit in the review.

Edited by Proggle - July 07 2025 at 18:07

Atavachron wrote: Just have at it and screw what someone might think.

Ha ha, bold and invigorating advice :-). Thanks!

In my mind and intentions, a 5-star "masterpiece" is top 5 percent. Not if I like the album, which 3-4 stars do a great job of handling, but it also has to be something I consider absolutely essential/universal/iconic to sit on the "top five percent shelf" of my collection.

I am attempting to follow in the shoes of Hugues, who I've long considered the PA reviewer who rates albums in the best, optimal way, closest to the actual spirit of the stars definitions intent. If my math is correct, looking at Hugues 3000-plus reviews to date, 4.5 percent of them are 5-star. That's awesome and useful to me. I know when he rates something 5, it means something special and well beyond excellent.

Four stars is "excellent," which comfortably handles most of the great albums. That extra star needs to mean something well beyond excellent.

Edited by Finnforest - July 08 2025 at 05:57

Hi,

I was wondering what would happen if the "ratings" were completely removed ... it would force the "review" to be better worded and applied, instead of some sort of album plug, that happens with the ratings much too often.

Maybe we should enforce a completely different idea ... a new user/reviewer can not do "ratings" until after their 5th or 6th review ... and that might give some of those folks something to think about ... 5 reviews under the same name for the same album and band? Not likely to get very far!

Preventing any newbie to add reviews simply to advertise the band, would help in one way ... make the reviews more important all around, and likely flush out a lot of stuff that is over rated and just spam for a band, or a listing. It might also help the Admins, in not having to check 17/18 reviews every day that border on the spam side of things.

As wide open as things are at this time, the invitation is to do whatever anyone can, and I'm not sure that we need to have things that wide open at all ... in order to be able to maintain the quality of the work ... even though some might think that it is too stuck up ... in essence it is protecting the work of hundreds of others from being left behind.

A year ago I went over the reviews of one album and read over 50 of them ... and honestly? At least 10 of those should have been removed as they are not reviews! I'm not sure that we should be allowing what amounts to a bit of garbage onto the incredible amount of work it takes to make this board work ... we're adding more work that does not need to be there and can easily be addressed with some special needs ... and reviewers not able to rate anything until after their 5th review is a fair idea, even if some folks are not gonna like it ... let them go try and post somewhere else, where there are rules for the spamming of an album review as some listings on PA obviously are!

I wish there was a way to have folks at PA actually take a look at the suggestions, but when it comes to Mosh, I think most collaborators probably look at something else. It's ok ... I don't mind being the ugly duckling ... remembering that the bass in the lake don't care when momma and all the ducklings go for their first swim!

In reality there are very few "Essential" albums over the long haul. Many albums deemed essential by a few raters have been long forgotten over the years. Unfortunately an album only truly becomes essential after never-ending Sales and long term interest.

I have many albums I call Essential that no one else has probably ever heard of. I've given 5 stars to many albums. It's more of a 'personal taste' rating.

^

It's really very cool that you're taking the site serious enough to be concerned with rating in the manner the founders intended, as opposed to what you see in some corners of the ratings universe, which is:
I like it = 5 stars.

Much of the internet seems to struggle with the idea of the middle ground, moderate ratings. Not so much here, but other places that rate.

Kudos to you for caring.

At AP we have a 0-100 scale, and 90-100 are labelled the "S-tier". When converting this to a five star rating only the S-tier results in five stars, whereas numerically you might expect 80-100 (one fifth). Then 80-89 maps to four stars. Then a comparatively large section (50-79) is mapped to three stars, 30-49 results in two stars, and anything less than 30 maps to one star. This non-linear mapping tries to reflect the significance we intuitively attribute to the stars:

5 stars: truly exceptional
4 stars: awesome
3 stars: decent/good, but not really great
2 stars: mediocre
1 star: bad

Hi,

Now I'm not sure ... I only rate "reviews" of mine, and never have rated another album at all ... which I would think is an area (if wide open) will be abused senselessly.

Most of my reviews, these days, are on the Jazz Music Archives, where I am working on reviewing the large bunch of ECM stuff I have and other jazz/fusion related stuff. In general, on the rock side, there are so many reviews on some albums, that I do not feel that we need to add another review. I mean ... c'mon ... who's going to bother even checking 5 or 10 reviews of ITCOTCK or any other album?

After a bit, I think it gets ridiculous, and honestly, I would prefer that someone could audit the reviews as some of them should not be there and considered "reviews" at all. But I'm a reviewer (over 600 art/foreign films), so saying that makes sense, but you're not gonna get me to review another Marvel Comic Book Review or another of those impossible bruhahas!

Edited by moshkito - July 09 2025 at 04:58

Recently I listened to a new release that I loved ( which doesn’t happen very often ) and I gave it a 5 star rating. My opinion is that if YOU love it, why not give it a 5 or at least a 4.   Someone else will come along and give it a 1 or 2…. You can count on it.   After a year or two it will rise or drop into its proper place, or thereabouts. Some of the worlds greatest records are sitting at 3.75 - 4.00 after 50 years