This has probably been a topic here before, but, I figured now that everyone is talking about the best albums of the year, the merits of "professional" critics, and such, I thought I'd ask how people here personally critique or rate an album.

What is the formula you use to rate album? What are the criteria you consider when critiqueing an album?

In other words, how do you come to the conclusion that an album is either great, mediocre, or poor?

Personally, I look for originality, quality of musicianship, lyrics, and overall pleasing sound or personal entertainment value(which in and of itself is quite subjective).

All of your criteria are valid, but I personally rate albums based on how they make me feel. I don't mean if they make me happy or sad. I mean how they speak directly to me, so I guess that makes the personal part more important to me.

Originality doesn't matter to me unless it's boring into my soul. Sometimes the lyrics can get me, sometimes it's the voice, others it's the music itself, and when it's REALLY GOOD, it's everything.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
All of your criteria are valid, but I personally rate albums based on how they make me feel. I don't mean if they make me happy or sad. I mean how they speak directly to me, so I guess that makes the personal part more important to me.

I agree totally. I think a lot of reviewers are concerned about how others perceive the album and how original or innovative an album is. To me, innovative albums often make a real impact on me because they offer something that I've never quite experienced before. I would never rate an album highly purely because of innovation, however. Nor would I attempt to analyze each part of the album in order to determine by rating (though if I were doing a review I would try to determine what exactly it is about the album that makes me like it). I don't think it makes any sense to rate an album highly because, though it doesn't make you feel anything, you recognize good qualities in the music. Like Mark said, it's all about feel, man.

Well, it obviously all comes down to...how much enjoyment I get from it.

The rest is just figuring out what qualities tend to make me enjoy music, and how the album in question exhibits those qualities.

For me, the qualities that tend to make me enjoy the album more are...the overall emotional power and 'organicness' of the music, the energy the music has, and the uniqueness.

As for professional critics versus casual listeners...well, professional critics are just music fans who make it their career. If they have anything over casual listeners it would be: Experience listening to a whole lot of different music, and ability to consider the album in the greater context of 'Music'.

Basically..I would weigh the opinion higher of somebody who's heard 10000 albums than somebody who just listens to what's playing on the radio. And critics have. But, I'd weigh the opinion of any music fan who's heard 10000 albums equally regardless of whether or not they're a professional.

quote:

Originally posted by Bobthespirit:
Well, it obviously all comes down to...how much enjoyment I get from it.

The rest is just figuring out what qualities tend to make me enjoy music, and how the album in question exhibits those qualities.

For me, the qualities that tend to make me enjoy the album more are...the overall emotional power and 'organicness' of the music, the energy the music has, and the uniqueness.

As for professional critics versus casual listeners...well, professional critics are just music fans who make it their career. If they have anything over casual listeners it would be: Experience listening to a whole lot of different music, and ability to consider the album in the greater context of 'Music'.

Basically..I would weigh the opinion higher of somebody who's heard 10000 albums than somebody who just listens to what's playing on the radio. And critics have. But, I'd weigh the opinion of any music fan who's heard 10000 albums equally regardless of whether or not they're a professional.

10000 concurrences.

I don't necessarily rate albums. I go by what moves me and what doesn't. I look for a flow or something challenging that works. But, it has to be something that has not been done before that really blows my mind. Always searching for something new and bold. And if that same artist can continue to do that, then a following happens. Whether it is improving on their style, or trying to expand and create something new out of something old...I'll be there.

Bands I have recently given up on (but which I still love most of their library) are: Yo La Tengo, Low, and NIN, because they have grown stale in their limited writing.

On the other hand....The Indigo Girls, PJ Harvey and The Flaming LIps, etc, have got stronger in recent outings, and my ears like the progression, and, I guess I grow with a certain type of artist....

it's all what moves me in my growth as a listener...

I used to review albums for my college’s newspaper and for the local music magazine in town and learned a lot on how to objectively rate or review an album.

One thing that stands out for me is musicianship; are the group members/artist musically inclined and do they convey it in their music? It is very apparent when someone is a tremendous musician and when someone is just a studio alteration. For example, in my eyes The Roots are not only some of the best hip/hop entrepreneurs around but some of the best musicians available so to me their albums are that much deeper because they are immensely talented. Other artists that play a lot of instruments along with singing—and singing on pitch, key and tone—are examples like Beck, Sufjan Stevens, Jack White, Thome York, Trent Reznor and Andre 3000 make their albums that much better because of the musicianship they offer.
And if you listen very closely to System of a Down they are becoming tighter, cleaner, more original, their music is flowing better, more creative and in many ways the music is getting prettier thus showcasing musicianship again. And on the flip side other artists like Ashlee Simpson who don’t even write their own music, don’t play any instruments and have trouble singing will have problems making good music because they aren’t even true musicians.

To me that may be the biggest thing, but I completely agree with Bobthespirit when he says that the best reviewers and critics are those that have heard 10000 albums because they bring a lot more to the table. When someone has heard that much music they are bound to know what is good and what is not.

quote:

To me that may be the biggest thing, but I completely agree with Bobthespirit when he says that the best reviewers and critics are those that have heard 10000 albums because they bring a lot more to the table. When someone has heard that much music they are bound to know what is good and what is not.

That is a laughable final statement, Fragile, just so pretentious. I don't care if someone listened to every album ever made, it does not, in any way, make that 'someone' more qualified to say what is good and what is not than someone who may just be a casual listener. What I'm saying has been said throughout history: that all art is subjective. One may be different, but it's not better.

Just because I prefer reading Walt Whitman over, say, Billy Collins doesn't make regognize a higher form of art; it's just that I'm looking for a certain something in my art and that's all. There is nothing more to it than that.

quote:

Originally posted by purple:
That is a laughable final statement, Fragile, just so pretentious. I don't care if someone listened to every album ever made, it does not, in any way, make that 'someone' more qualified to say what is good and what is not than someone who may just be a casual listener. What I'm saying has been said throughout history: that all art is subjective. One may be different, but it's not better.

Maybe so, but a person who has listened to 10000 albums is far more likely to rate highly something that I, as a person who listens to a lot of music, would like. A casual music fan would be more likely to recommend something that another casual music fan would like. But since casual music fans don't often read reviews, I think a reviewer who's listened to tons of music is far more valuable.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
All of your criteria are valid, but I personally rate albums based on how they make me feel. I don't mean if they make me happy or sad. I mean how they speak directly to me, so I guess that makes the personal part more important to me.

Originality doesn't matter to me unless it's boring into my soul. Sometimes the lyrics can get me, sometimes it's the voice, others it's the music itself, and when it's REALLY GOOD, it's everything.

This is pretty close to how I feel. I come from a creative writing background, and one of the things I always ask myself after reading something is, "was it good?" I know this sounds vague, but it's how I operate. It's that initial reaction to it. While I'm listening to something, I'm not necessarily paying particular attention to the lyrics or the voice or the melody unless one of them grabs me. But at the end I know if I liked it or not. And only then do I reflect on why I may liked it, and it can be for a slew of reasons. And if I don't like it, I listen again anyway. I think this is part of the reason people look at me funny when they look through my music library and ask "how could you like this and this?" Like mark said, it can be one thing or everything about a song or album. Hell, I could listen to Emmylou Harris read the ingredients of modeling glue and be captivated! But when everything works, those are the classics.

quote:

Originally posted by purple:
That is a laughable final statement, Fragile, just so pretentious. I don't care if someone listened to every album ever made, it does not, in any way, make that 'someone' more qualified to say what is good and what is not than someone who may just be a casual listener. What I'm saying has been said throughout history: that all art is subjective. One may be different, but it's not better.

Just because I prefer reading Walt Whitman over, say, Billy Collins doesn't make regognize a higher form of art; it's just that I'm looking for a certain something in my art and that's all. There is nothing more to it than that.

This contention is absurd, and has been throughout history. Look, I was a science major and I don't know jack about the history of art, music, whatever. But the notion that Mozart is no better than Salieri or that Blinking with Fists is no worse than Leaves of Grass is untenable. Some people are looking for a trashy romance, but in their universe Danielle Steele is not on equal footing with Faulkner, no matter what they think. There is a difference between what we love and what is great.

It follows that you must be prepared to accept that some people are better critics of art than others. There may even be some who are better at it than you. Experience is not the only criterion, but it certainly matters; suggesting that it does is far from pretentious.

Context is also really, really important to know in fairly judging music.

There are some young people out there who've never bothered to listen to anything that came out prior to Nevermind.

I'm also speaking from experience. I think I had bad taste until I went back and listened to the Beatles and Bob Dylan. I didn't even expect much from them at the time, but when I heard them it struck me immediately how much better they were than 'Matchbox 20'.

On some very absolute level, all music criticism is subjecive. But...music criticism that isn't done with a practiced ear and with knowledge of historical context simply is not useful in determining what might interest you.

If you asked me to recommend an album seven or eight years ago, I might have said 'Hybrid Theory'. Should my tastes have been taken seriously back then? The answer is a resounding 'NO!'

I rate an album by how many songs on it I like. I rate a song by how the sum of its contents affects me. I rate the sum of a song's contents by what's going on in and around me at any particular time I hear the song. However, though I've never had a song I like become poor or mediocre to me, many once considered mediocre songs have become songs I really like (as I probably wasn't ready to like them when I first heard them). Time has a lot to do with my deciding on how I rate an album or song. Or maybe it's that I have a lazy opinion.

Thanks RavingLunatic and dubs

I personally rate an album to the number of songs i like on it just like crazed. I will however acknowledge the historical value of an album, to give an example: I don't like Revolver by The Beatles. The only song I really remembered and wanted to hear again off of it was "I'm Only Sleeping", it is my least liked of the beatles albums i've heard. Although it is a very important album in terms of the innovations it brought to music, I just didn't like it.

BUT because music is a subject experience, maybe I was having a bad day. I should listen to it again.

Of course you should.

The best albums to me, as some have said, contain a certain element that really can't be clearly defined. They just have that something in the songwriting and musicianship that makes the music special. My favorite artists bring something original to the table everytime they write a good album. Take Calculating Infinity by The Dillinger Escape Plan, one of my favorite albums, for instance. The musicianship is superb, the style is very original, and they write songs that stick with me. My favorite albums also take a while to sink in. I love it when I can't quite get into an album at first, but I have a subtle feeling that one day it will have grown on me. Challenging music is the best.

Hmmm, I think I give an album more weight for having lots of great individual songs than some would and I am not so worried if there are some dead spots. Really classic songs are like gold. Totally cohesive, brilliant albums are the ideal, of course, but those are fairly rare (Soft Bulletin, Pet Sounds, Abbey Road, etc.).

I was reading about REM the ohter day and I was reminded that, to me, lyrics don't necessarily have to be great (or even intelligible). It's like skat in jazz, or something. Words can actually be pretty limiting.

Music, first and foremost, must keep my brain engaged. I cannot stand bland, uninspired music. To me it's important to engage the listener; if you aren't conveying a (strong) feeling, message or idea at least do nothing in an interesting way. (IDM is a good example of this.)

I also tend to judge song-oriented albums by how many songs are good, and more full album efforts as a cohesive whole.

When I'm trying to form a list I tend to take the albums, listen to them against each other, and note which one I enjoyed more.

I don't think that if you have the albums fresh in your memory you can really accurately compare how much you enjoy them. Speaking for myself, at least, I know when I tried to make lists based on just remembering I would strongly favor the albums I wanted to like more, then discover later I didn't actually enjoy them.

Whereas, when I do it this way, I find my list changes a lot less in the long term.

Also for year end top ten lists I tend to take them from a pool of five from each quarter so there's no recency bias.

(I'm obsessively statistical.)