When you rate a new album here on the progarchives, do you go back after a certain number of listens to adjust your first rating when you listened to the album within a short time after it's release? For example; say after three listens to the new release you rate it 5 stars, but after numerous listens you realise it's not worthy of 5 stars and you adjust your rating to 4 stars, 3 stars, ...? Or do you tend to rate a new release with a conservative rating after a relative few listens and find yourself giving that album a higher rating after numerous listens?

 

For me, listening to a new release after 3 or 4 listens I tend to give it a conservative rating and usually adjust the rating higher after many listens. Of course, some albums I have rated lower than my first rating.

 

Your thoughts? Your trends on rating albums here on progarchives? Do you see the same trend as I do with the ratings with a new release?

 

I've been more cautious about giving 5 star ratings lately, but it still happens.

The answer to the question is absolutely yes. I do think some are far too free with their masterpiece ratings. Masterpieces are a rare commodity, and looking at my almost 200 ratings, about 18% have a five star rating. Even this is probably too high, but nowhere as near as high as many others.

Members need to realise that three and four star albums are what they say they are, good and excellent, and that there is no shame as an artist in getting this rating.

As for a "cooling off period", I really sympathise with the sentiment, but it would be impossible to enforce, I think. I thought of having some sort of "review/rating moderating panel", who could objectively look at these things and mark down or up as they saw fit, but, again, too much work, and, of course, people would get extremely upset at having their marking changed.

Having said all this, it is a fact that many people reading reviews are able to identify the reviewer who fits in best with their taste and is "sound of judgement".

All good points. I can't disagree with what you say.

 

For me, I give four stars here to an album that would be a nine on a ten star system. For me, 5 stars=10 stars.

 

We all have different criteria for rating albums. In regards to the question, it is more of a general observation I have seen with ratings here at PA. I'm not saying that anybody's ratings are right or wrong or that I agree or disagree with how people rate albums. I have respect for others ratings. If you give In Absentia only a 1 star rating that wouldn't bother me in the least. If anything, I'd have admiration for you stating the fact that you think the album is only worth 1 star.

 

But, yes, I have noticed that trend happneing. I try to give new albums a little longer before I stop taking reviews/ratings with a grain of salt.

 

 

I'm generally one to rate from the middle of the scale: making three stars as a normal likeable album, and 5 stars as exceptional...  I start from the assumption that exceptionally good albums are the exception, so they're rather rare.... which means that even 5% of the total albums should be less than 5... most people are way tooooooo generous, IMHO

 

Yes I agree that there should a self-imposed moratorium on reviews on new releases (last time I looked the latest VdGG album still had no collab reviews )

 

 

 

And of course one should be able to update their reviews and ratings: I can't see one reason to forbid it.

 

 

I rate on Gnosis2000 and it's recommended not to rate higher than 11 (out of a piossible 15) before a few months after discovering the album, just to avoid the novelty factor ... you can always go back to change your rating later if you feel you've evolved in your appreciation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[shameless_plug]You can also rate at Progfreak.com - there you can, in addition to the rating, specify how familiar you are with the album.[/shameless_plug]

I don't think that this is a good idea. If everyone did that - give the album a lower rating if for example they only listened to it once - you could never be sure of what the ratings mean. Obviously many people will fail to return to correct their rating later on.

I think that even without an elaborate system of correction mechanisms and instructions it doesn't hurt if people, when blown away by an album at first listen, give it a 5/5, 10/10 or 15/15. If they had that kind of experience, that's what the rating should reflect. If they change their mind a few months later - who is to say that that rating will be more accurate? I'm sure that it often is, but sometimes people also grow tired of stuff, or lose interest in styles. There are obviously many factors here, and IMO the best strategy is to simply take every rating with a grain of salt.

 How about a kick in the azz?

1: Motivation to buy new. If you think about it, who are the people most likely to rush out and grab a band's latest release as soon as it comes out? The people who are already fans of that particular group, of course! And so it's only natural that their reviews will tend towards the higher ratings - well, unless a band tries out a different approach with a new album which alienates a large proportion of their existing fanbase, which does happen, but I don't think it happens so often as to throw the trend off.

2: Motivation to review. It's always easier to push yourself to write glowing praise of an album you really, really love - the urge to share the joy with people is a powerful one. (Likewise, if you seriously dislike an album that could also be a good motivator to warn the world about it...) It's a bit harder to motivate yourself to review an album you're only lukewarm about or which you consider to be OK but not especially praiseworthy or horrible. So in general people are a bit more likely to review albums they want to rave or curse about than albums they don't particularly care about.

When you take those two factors and put them together, the people reviewing albums when they are newly released are disproportionately likely to be folk who a) like the band in question and were looking forward to the release and b) formed a fairly immediate opinion about the album rather than being unsure and wanting to give it a few more listens before reviewing. So it's only natural that new releases get good reviews and then get harsher criticism later on.

Personally, I think my 5-star ratings are a bit high at the moment, but they're skewed a bit because at the moment I'm doing a project of going through my music collection in chronological order and reviewing *everything* - which means that the albums I'm reviewing now will tend to be the 1960s-early 1970s albums which have well and truly stood the test of time. I anticipate my proportion of 5-stars will go down over time as I get to more recent albums which perhaps are a bit more imitative and a bit less innovative.

What I think might help is a rule that an album can't appear on the top 100 lists until at least 6 months after its release date; I think that's a fair amount of time to let the initial wave of enthusiasm die down and get some input from cooler heads.

 

I'd expected no less from you, actually

 

good ol'Mike

 

 

Mr ProgFreak wrote: I don't think that this is a good idea. If everyone did that - give the album a lower rating if for example they only listened to it once - you could never be sure of what the ratings mean. Obviously many people will fail to return to correct their rating later on. I think that even without an elaborate system of correction mechanisms and instructions it doesn't hurt if people, when blown away by an album at first listen, give it a 5/5, 10/10 or 15/15. If they had that kind of experience, that's what the rating should reflect. If they change their mind a few months later - who is to say that that rating will be more accurate? I'm sure that it often is, but sometimes people also grow tired of stuff, or lose interest in styles. There are obviously many factors here, and IMO the best strategy is to simply take every rating with a grain of salt.

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let's just stay above the moral melee
prefer the sink to the gutter
keep our sand-castle virtues
content to be a doer
as well as a thinker,
prefer lifting our pen
rather than un-sheath our sword