So I tend to rely in good reviewers that I like/trust than general ratings or random reviews. 

yep, it's the reviews

King Crimson's Discipline is only a two-star album for me, although I'm more often accused of overrating albums.

My thoughts exactly.  Thanks, Manuel!

By the way, despite my agreement with PA on what are the best/worst albums by most of the artists, sometimes I really regret looking at ratings too much: for example, due to ratings it's only recently that I've tried The Difference Machine by BBT, which is rated ~0.5 (!!!) lower then its successors (and I don't even like them), and it turned out as to be one of my best recent discoveries. 3.64, really? Sometimes I don't get PA's opinion at all. 
Finally, lower-rated albums are often plain catchy and pleasant despite being less progressive.

softandwet wrote: Personally, I am very influenced by PA rating when it comes to find new music. Is it bad, good? I don't know since I never seem disappointed by those ratings. But I won't seriously listen to an album if it is rated lower than 4 stars on PA.

There must be albums on PA with a low score overall (possibly in Crossover or Proto) that you really liked before you discovered Prog Archives? Ignore the score - your ears are the best reviewer we've got. If you don't even trust your own judgement then how can you express an opinion about anything?

We'll never hear from the people that are, lol.

You just contradicted yourself there(in bold). First you say you don't use the PA rating to decide if you likie it then right after that you say it's your main source and that you start with the highest rated albums. 

People are full of contradictions and hypocrisy.

I'm not sure that most of us old folks can be influenced by a lot of what PA says or does, although I accept when some folks correct my knowledge here and there ... but in general, when it comes to music listening, I doubt PA can hold a candle to it ... mostly because in the next 5 sentences the same person shows a taste for top five ... which has nothing to do with music whatsoever!

No way...

I influence PA

not the other way around 

Of course it has some impact.

In most cases I don't really give a damn if I care about the band/soloist. That's why I decided to review Jethro and Oldfield from A to Z (studio albums) and started at the bottom - to get the idea why the lowest rated albums are criticised so much. Then I understood, but often disagreed (i.e. Crises) or recognized the criticism is too stark (Rock Island).

BUT

I always liked In the Wake of Poseidon, and there was a time around ~2008 when I thought that album is as good as ITCOTCK. Progarchives is known in my "household" () since 2005-ish or so... but for some reason I only realized a few years ago that ITWOP averages <4.00, it is 3.83 at the moment, but I swear I've seen it at 3.70! Now, when you compare 3.70 to 4.60 of the debut, it's lightyears... so I started to analyze ITWOP with much more scrutiny, read the reviews and, unfortunately, I don't enjoy it as much as I used to - even though I'm fully aware that PA rating influenced me big time. If I were to review Poseidon, it's very unlikely I'd give it a 5, but if you asked me ten years ago - five stars is no brainer.

This is the most striking example of PA skewing my perception, and I surely hope to fix it one day! :)

Examples: 

CTTE - I do not understand why so many love it and have it on such a pedestal.  I think maybe you had to be there (and I was only 2...)

Dream Theater - in disagreement with an earlier poster, Awake is way below the level of Images And Words for me, so the ratings are right!

IQ - I love the Menel albums with a passion, and yet their ratings are very low (between 3 and 3.5 I think).  But this was the era when I discovered them, and that can make a huge difference.  And they are somewhat more "poppy", which inevitably drags the rating down whether people enjoyed the albums or not!

So, the ratings system on here does influence me, probably more than it should!

What would you do if you saw the IMDB score for this movie?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111742/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0" rel="nofollow - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111742/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0

You'd look at the rating of 6.2 and decide it's very unlikely to be worth your time, right?

Now I have seen the movie and imo the rating is too low though it is also not a masterpiece by any means.  But let's say King's Speech is rated an 8 and I don't find there to be such a huge gap between the two films.  But that's just me. 

More to the point, I happened to watch this movie on TV (long before I was aware of any website called IMDB and possibly before it had attained the avatar we are familiar with) when it accidentally came up in the afternoon slot.  That is how I know that this is a movie I like. 

Today? If I saw the rating, would the name of the director, would the cast all still influence me to give it a chance?  Possibly no.  

So ratings do have an influence.  We do become dependent on the ratings and reviews as a filter to wade through the huge mass of art that is now within our grasp.  If you say PA ratings do not influence you, it is possible that, instead, RYM does.  Or something else, whatever that may be.  But if you have never listened to that album and see a rating on an aggregator, it is unlikely not to influence you.  And as we become more and more dependent on ratings to cut through the clutter, we lose the flexibility we used to have to just give any old song/movie appearing on the radio/TV a chance.  That is the bad part of the access we have and the aggregation system that allows us to make sense of this cornucopia of art.

On this site, there are a small number of reviewers who are their equal, or better, and I read the reviews with interest and occasionally for tips as to what might be of interest. There are new albums by artists which I will always buy, which doesn’t change no matter what the review, and actually I found myself disagreeing violently with the reviews for IQ Resistance, which was plastered with 5 star reviews.

Reviews do influence readers, especially those not particularly familiar with an artist. Else, why have them?

Of course I also read Finnish music magazines younger (have read them a little also recently) and there were album reviews that woke my interest. But most recommendations I have got from the great friends with as much interest to music listening as I have. In PA there is only one reviewer that has really close taste of music as I have, but he hasn´t made reviews much recently. So I really don´t read much reviews from PA (just because I have listened some albums some reviewer has given 5 stars and really I have disagreeded with him).

I agree on this.  Huge IQ fan, but I can't understand the love for this album, it has highs but too many lows.  And yet people on here and on the Marillion forum love it and think it's more consistent than The Road Of Bones!!!

So all ratings, and reviews, must be taken with a liberal sprinkling of salt....

Hi,

Depends on the time and place ... when you see an idiot state in his review that Tangerine Dream sounds like a washing machine, you know for sure that this reviewer did not listen to anything, except his washing machine (must have been in his top ten!!!), and made a comment to help/better the sales of his favorite band, whose glowing review was right under it!

Just about anyone that I was around, that was playing imports in the early 70's read stuff like that, and most of them, ended up going out and buying the stuff that got trashed, because ... only an idiot and a jerk would ever think that TD sounded like a washing machine ... and this will help your interest.

Almost all of the 70's (specially) I did not buy a single album (over 2500 LP's by the end of the decade), because of reviews ... why? Easy ... THERE WERE NONE ... and I can not name a single one of those European bands that did not stand up to the quality and amount of work ... today, just about all of these bands, including the lesser ones are appreciated to give you an idea.

The main problem with a review, in a commercial society, is that it will be GOOD, simply to help the number of sales, and then you see the incredibly big adverts in NY and LA, and you know that it has been plastered with "top album" (or "top artist") and that you must get it ... and you end up doing so ... and if you don't believe me, then look at the Harry Potter series that was carefully orchestrated to make sure that the "reviewers" all said the right things, so people would think it was a great bunch of movies, and half of them are crap, and poorly written, and all they have is "acting vignettes" that make you feel like it was a great moment in the film!

It's called manipulation, and those with the most money are always wanting to make sure they get twice their money, and in the case of a few other film makers or groups of film makers, the idea is to gouge the public for millions and millions ... and we think its good stuff!

PA is nowhere near that (thank goodness) and its ability to "influence" many albums is just about dependent on its top 5 or top 10, which they make sure that someone else re-starts the same thread because it gets folks involved, specially Genesis and Jethro Tull fans, who have nothing better to do than think that those 2 bands invented progressive rock and music!

All of these, again, speak of a very different topic than that which I addressed.  Which is, simply, that we do tend to look at ratings of an album if that is the only source of information we have about it.  Not all of us have a rich artistic social circle where we can get recommendations we trust on different albums, you know.  What do you do if you do not stumble by accident upon an album or have had any friend tell you they liked it and nor, furthermore, is it a band you're already aware of?  You'll look at ratings...or at least most people would.  That does not make looking at ratings right or wrong, it's just what it is.

How can it not? If f.e. you disregard an album, and then you get to read some reviews that point to things in it that you haven't noticed before, it should influence you on one way or another.

Also, if you want to examine a certain subgenre that you don't really know about, you might choose some of the albums from the top 50 of that genre because it is easier.

Hi,

I disagree for the most part ... yes I had a cultural background, instead of a street background, but it did not take away my appreciation for a lot of the "street music" as so much rock music was considered in the 60's and early 70's.

In the end, this is all about YOU and YOU ... not a poll ... if the person is intuitive enough, they will find the music they end up liking ... if they depend on their friends comments, they won't, and it will be a bit of luck that something new would be liked, since, this person would not know how their friends relate to it.

We did not really have ratings in every wall and bathroom in the house in those days ... nowadays, you can't take 3 steps without being told that this and that is the number one seller or product on the market.

it all depends on the relative intelligence of the folks around it ... and while I do not think that is a requirement, sometimes using a bit of it, really helps see and define things, which a top of the heap poll can not!

If we want "progressive music" to MAKE IT, we have to stop thinking of it as something to compete with other top tens ... the music and the stuff we listen to is so far and apart from those things, and we're simply not giving the music the appreciation they need and want. We continue, going back to the "ratings" which are so far and away from the "truth" and reality of the music, that it is really sick! 

I don't get it why we don't see that. If KC, or ELP, or JT, or YES, or anyone else in the top five had given in to the PA comments, for example, they would never have been remembered 45 years later ... and I want to say ... HAVE WE LEARNED NOTHING?

PA influencing the way we like albums is a bit of an illusion ... of course, it is nice for PA, but not a reality ... but then, VARIETY is definitely not going to do a top ten for the week in "progressive" because they have thought for 50 years that it's crap! And our attitudes towards the music is the same thing ... a carbon copy of all the other attitudes!

That is the worst road map for new music, or new arts! And you know it!