And 'Fork gets less weight than AP, Blender, Rolling Stone, etc. Those three alone can determine an album's score.

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Originally posted by m.leland:
And 'Fork gets less weight than AP, Blender, Rolling Stone, etc. Those three alone can determine an album's score.

Rolling Stone gave the Hold Steady 3 1/2 stars - which translates to a 70. That should be bringing down that 91 a bit. Incidentally, it's the same rating they gave Fergie's The Dutchess. I swear those guys are on crack.

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Originally posted by nathanielkt:
What does being liberal have to do with it?

What, right-wingers hate world music?

Liberal is to the political world what indie is to the music world. A word that has lost all meaning that gets thrown around by people who don't really get what it means.

Yeah, I don't think critics' political views have anything to do with whether or not they like world music. I'd consider myself politically liberal, and I'm just not into world music. But some people really like it, and I don't think there's any political agenda to be found. I had an ex-gf who was really into world music.

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Originally posted by Thisheregiraffe:
It's surprising how high The Hold Steady is currently rating on Metacritic (91). The average from the five scores it's got so far is only 85. Does that mean Metacritic gives a lot of weight to P4K reviews and not much to Cokemachineglow?

Blender and The Onion A.V. Club are keeping the score up.

Let's take bets. I'll throw a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle at an 84.

Edit: I think it's hilarious Peter Hepburn at CMG thinks people will actually believe he's a Lifter-Puller fan. Way to Wikipedia that one, Pete.

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Originally posted by Illiniq:
Truth be told, this is the one Bugaboo of having a predominently liberal slant with music critics, they can't help themselves but to give these "Cultural" releases a higher than legitimate score "because they're important".

As I've said before...Ethnic releases, New albums from Legendary Artists, and super niched stuff that only gets 10-12 reviews(ie. Isolee from last year) are the three categories of albums that are most prone to collective grade inflation on metacritic.

OF COURSE he's right! It's pretty obvious...

What's basically keeping the Hold Steady and the Decemberists above the curve IS the curve, combined with a somewhat limited number of reviews. I honestly believe that some reviewers check MC before they post their reviews (ratings) just to adjust things a bit. Yeah, I see conspiracies everywhere; doesn't everybody over/under a certain age?

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I honestly believe that some reviewers check MC before they post their reviews (ratings) just to adjust things a bit.

I think this happens as well.

Hell, I've done it.

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Originally posted by m.leland:
And 'Fork gets less weight than AP, Blender, Rolling Stone, etc. Those three alone can determine an album's score.

What justifies weighing reviews from AP and Blender more heavily than reviews from Pitchfork? That seems bizzare, or at least severly behind the times (in terms of cultural relevance, if not readership).

There is no acknowledgement by anyone at MC that this happens, unless I missed something somewhere. Somebody could spend much of their life trying to deduce the weighting system, but I actually believe "The Curve" is more important, and the one thing I would add to the curve, which I'm not sure exists right now, is number of reviews. Albums with less reviews should be penalized, not because they don't deserve their ratings, but because the widely-reviewed ones probably shouldn't be penalized so much for contrarians (or should I say "honest people"? )

quote:

Originally posted by m.leland:
Edit: I think it's hilarious Peter Hepburn at CMG thinks people will actually believe he's a Lifter-Puller fan. Way to Wikipedia that one, Pete.

Speaking of funny Hold Steady reviews, how about Tiny Mix Tapes? I love how they always try to list bands that they think the band sounds like at the top of the review. But, they're usually hilariously way off. For the Hold Steady they listed Billy Joel(!) and the Talking Heads(!?!). ROFL. It's cute that they managed to name two artists from before they were born.

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Originally posted by ericg75:

quote:

Originally posted by m.leland:
Edit: I think it's hilarious Peter Hepburn at CMG thinks people will actually believe he's a Lifter-Puller fan. Way to Wikipedia that one, Pete.

Speaking of funny Hold Steady reviews, how about Tiny Mix Tapes? I love how they always try to list bands that they think the band sounds like at the top of the review. But, they're usually hilariously way off. For the Hold Steady they listed Billy Joel(!) and the Talking Heads(!?!). ROFL. It's cute that they managed to name two artists from before they were born.

Maybe Rolling Stone was right about "kids these days."

I think the reviewer fixated on the middle of the album. "First Night" initially sounds like a piano ballad which Billy Joel could have started, and the guitars during "Party Pit"'s verses do have a jagged, early Talking Heads flavor. Maybe I'm giving them the benefit of a doubt, but there are some "slight connections".

mark is too nice.

I try to be when I'm not trying to be otherwise, but just between you and me, I was asked to apologize (for God knows what) or leave at another site where I moderate, and I said I had nothing to apologize for, so I'm an official persona non grata there, as well as an anti-social asshole. I guess those are synonyms.

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Originally posted by mark f:
Maybe I'm giving them the benefit of a doubt, but there are some "slight connections".

I believe you're giving the reviewer the benefit of the doubt.

He also calls the break in "Stuck Between Stations" "a bit of Ben Folds-esque tomfoolery" (!?!) and believes the use of an acoustic guitar in "Citrus" makes it sound like "a goddamn Counting Crows song".

Still ROFL.

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Originally posted by ericg75:
It's cute that they managed to name two artists from before they were born.

Since, you know, it's impossible to know a band unless they were formed after you were born.

The Rolling what? Stones? Like the magazine?

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Originally posted by RavingLunatic:

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Originally posted by ericg75:
It's cute that they managed to name two artists from before they were born.

Since, you know, it's impossible to know a band unless they were formed after you were born.

Fair enough, but I was just trying to point out that the Billy Joel/Talking Heads comparison is completely random and mostly innaccurate and this is probably due to the fact that the reviewer's an inexperienced listener. It would be like me saying TV on the Radio sounds like the Decemberists and the New Pornographers. After all, they're all indie rock bands from the mid-00s.

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:

quote:

Originally posted by RavingLunatic:

quote:

Originally posted by ericg75:
It's cute that they managed to name two artists from before they were born.

Since, you know, it's impossible to know a band unless they were formed after you were born.

Fair enough, but I was just trying to point out that the Billy Joel/Talking Heads comparison is completely random and mostly innaccurate and this is probably due to the fact that the reviewer's an inexperienced listener. It would be like me saying TV on the Radio sounds like the Decemberists and the New Pornographers. After all, they're all indie rock bands from the mid-00s.

Has not this been discussed already? Noone ever manages to find a "sounds like" which is even reasonably close.