I've always wondered what other people thought about how the critics rated their reviews. Like, Pitchfork has the numerical rating, which often gets them in trouble, because it's too exact. Whereas critics like AllMusic and Rolling Stone both go by stars, which is in some cases, too broad.

Question:
Which do you trust/prefer more?

Choices:
Numbers
Stars

 

I'm beginning to appreciate the star method more, but for the most part, I've been a numerical rating type of guy.

eventually music reviews will become so artistic and involved that they will become music themselves. later, after the cycle of reviewing music musically becomes more popular, the reviews will be reviewed and all of music will become a meta-reflection upon one singular album that sparked the cycle. only then will our society be creating true art.

this is true, it will happen you just wait and see. already the quantitative analysis of music has been undermined. people are realizing that numerical restrictions are not worthy of art and there will be a rupture amongst critics. when this happens, when people become aware of the uselessness of outsider criticism and begin to rely more on the transfer of feelings and emotions to recommend art, the second renaissance will begin.

stop the assignment of grades to art.

stop the quantification of feelings.

express how you feel, and tell of why this feeling should be shared. we are not one; we will never truly know each other. share what you can.

we are not machines

there is more than ones and zeros, there is a realm of understanding outside of mathematics. unfortunately, people criticize with mathematical language today. stop. for the sake of art.

POLL:

no, no poll

quote:

art is subjective

so what?

exactly

quote:

Originally posted by bushn:
when people become aware of the uselessness of outsider criticism and begin to rely more on the transfer of feelings and emotions to recommend art, the second renaissance will begin.

stop the assignment of grades to art.

stop the quantification of feelings.

express how you feel, and tell of why this feeling should be shared. we are not one; we will never truly know each other. share what you can.

we are not machines

I really like this philosophy. It's a good reminder of what music should be about for listeners.

I can go either way on this. I do appreciate a quick glimpse of what a critic thought of an album. BUT I also respect that that scoring/star rating is only indicative of their thoughts. One critic may love something and give it a perfect score and the next person to come along could absolutely hate it. In my reviews I try and be somewhat open minded of this. I still score based on my own thoughts and feelings and yet if I do feel that there are people out there that would enjoy or hate the album, I single them out in the review. I find a "Try if you like" field much more helpful.

I think the inherent problem with assigning a number rating to an album is...well, okay, there's a few problems with it. If you do it for your own reference or whatever, that's cool. I use my own system. But as far as publishing goes, I think there's a tendency to read a number and then skip what someone might say about the album altogether. 5.0? Eh, not worth my time, right?

But also, it's a very subjective thing. Especially considering how different certain types of albums are. Like, for instance, I'd give Scott Walker's 'The Drift' a 9.3, most likely, as well as Sleater-Kinney's 'One Beat.' But they're so different, and likely have different audiences, that it becomes a matter of do you like indie rock or do you like abstract, avant garde...uh, pop music? It just barely qualifies I think.

Grades.

I give grades from F to A+. You have a built in scale that most people are used to, and its fun!

Christgau gives grades, which I always thought was extremely unique and fun. Gonna agree with you there, LoS. In my mind, I've always assigned star ratings, but appreciate the added nuance that a grading system or a numerical system allows you.

quote:

Originally posted by Lawrence_Of_Suburbia:
Grades.

I give grades from F to A+. You have a built in scale that most people are used to, and its fun!

You can easily convert numerical ratings to a grading scale (i.e. 8.9= B+ and 4.5= F-).

Many rating systems can be useful it they include some sort of editorial policy that explains what the ratings mean. Robert Christgau does a good job of this in his consumer guide and Roger Ebert has done the same for his film reviews. Christgau has also included several original ratings that don't clearly fall on a scale but help classify records that other rating systems cannot. For example, an album with one fantastic song and otherwise reprehensible material would receive the "scissors" grade for "choice cut" from Christgau. What would the record receive from Pitchfork? 9.0 because of the fantastic song, or 1.0 because it's mostly crap? Tough to say, and tough to know merely from reading the rating what the record might contain.

Flawed as they may be, ratings are very useful because they help us to sift through the enormous amount of media that is available for our consumption. I don't have time to listen to every album Rolling Stone or Pitchfork reviews, nor do I even have time to read through each of their reviews. The ratings are decent guide to what might be worth my money and time.

personally i'm not a fan of stars or numbers. i think different people look for differnt things in an album. some people like an album that has great vocals and lyrics while others wouldn't give a damn if the singer was tone deaf and singing in gibberish. there are an infinite list of attributes. we have a great music critic down here in sydney who only states whats good about an album and whats bad about it (unless its radiohead then its all good) and never gives stars or numbers.

I prefer the number rating vs. stars. I don't really have any great reason why other than I find a 6 or a 7 is easier understood to me more than *** or *** 1/2 (and yes, I do realize they are the same). I suppose it's just a preference.

In Canada we have a free national music magazine called Exclaim which is pretty great and their reviews don't have any ratings with them. What I find with those reviews is that at the end of the piece I sometimes find myself asking, "but was it any good?".

I do somewhat agree that putting a rating system on art raises many theoritical questions but with so many albums being released in a week, ratings do make it easier to cut through the dross and find the quality music. I would imagine that's why we all come to metacritic. Honestly, I would much rather have someone else see 6 terrible bands every week and listen to 40 CDs and let me know about the handful of good bands for me to look into out of that pile.

I believe Robin Williams said something about how you couldn't criticize music with numbers in the Dead Poet's Society.

quote:

Originally posted by Lawrence_Of_Suburbia:
Grades.

I give grades from F to A+. You have a built in scale that most people are used to, and its fun!

Most people being Americans, I assume.

quote:

Originally posted by Any Lay Man:

quote:

Originally posted by Lawrence_Of_Suburbia:
Grades.

I give grades from F to A+. You have a built in scale that most people are used to, and its fun!

Most people being Americans, I assume.

Sure.

I've never understood why you would introduce, say, a 0-10 scale and then award increments of whole numbers (8.3, 4.9 etc.).
If you want to be that exact, why not just start with a 0-100 scale?
I use 1-5 as a broad brush on my blog - the shading comes in the review itself.