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~Guest 302292
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 07, 2013 11:05 pm 
 

Is anyone else highly irritated by this? One would think that a perfect score would imply timelessness.
I understand liking a lot upon first listen, but I'd give it much more time to let it sink in to the point where I would eventually give it a 100%.

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XcKyle93
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:38 am 
 

Some reviewers are sent promos, so they have actually had a lot of time to listen to the album before the official release date.
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BastardHead
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:40 am 
 

I would agree, but I gave the new Sigh album a prefect score when it was only six months old. So kind of a pot and kettle thing there.
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Metantoine
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:57 am 
 

XcKyle93 wrote:
Some reviewers are sent promos, so they have actually had a lot of time to listen to the album before the official release date.

That's usually not the kind of reviewers who were giving 100% to Wintersun or Amon Amarth, these are usually fanboys who have 4 or 5 reviews on the site. Many, many, many 100% reviews are from non regulars, at least that's what the queue seems to indicate. I'm fine with 100% when it's one of your absolute classics, Sigh is important enough for Mike to justify a perfect score and even though I was a bit hasty to give Tales of Medusa a 100%, it really is a great album that I'll listen to for years. Sometimes, you just know. But it needs to be well justified. We rejected a 100% review for No Prayer for the Dying today, it had ridiculous arguments.

Perfect scores are meaningful and sometimes I feel they're thrown around like plasma TVs during the Boxing Day.
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xexyzl
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 2:19 am 
 

That new Revocation review? Yeahhh. Somehow I doubt a band as mediocre as Revocation released something worth 100%.

And Bastard, 6 months seems like long enough time to give an album 100% (as long as you started listening to it at the time of release), whereas I seriously doubt a few weeks (in the case of promos) is.

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MutantClannfear
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 2:58 am 
 

I've only given four albums 100-percent reviews here on this website. All of those were written within three months of first discovering the album in question, and I'd still consider three out of four to be a 100% (one is about a 90% for me nowadays). I don't think there's anything wrong with giving 100% reviews out of the gate as long as, in the process, you think long and hard about why you would give it such a score and how it stacks up against other albums of similar genre, atmosphere, exposure, and so on. I doubt many people expect 100% albums to literally be perfect, but giving the maximum score out of a scale with a gradient from 0 to 100 (as opposed to 1 to 5 or something like that) is going to need a lot of extra justification; as long as you can provide that via asking yourself questions about the quality of the album in the process, I don't see the problem.

Of course, it's annoying when non-regular reviewers do it because most of them don't really have a grade curve, or even the desire to review any albums that would force them to create one - they just pop up to write brief gushing for any album that sways their fancy, because they see reviews more as promotion for the band than as anything else. But unless you want to outright ban people from giving high-percentage scores while they're new to the website (not a good idea), there's no easy way to get around that. I typically just look over the list of reviewers for albums and then decide whose opinions hold stock by the usernames I recognize. Even if it's a reviewer whose tastes I completely distrust in regards to my own interests, the fact that I've seen their name around the place will give them a bit more weight regardless of what their actual score is.
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lord_ghengis
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 5:14 am 
 

I'm certainly not capable of it, hell it took me four years to review Funebrarum's 2009 album with a 99% score because I wanted to be completely certain I liked it as much I as I thought I did. In fact I don't think I've ever given higher than 94% to anything I've discovered and reviewed within the same year when I think about it, it's quite possible I stress over this far too much haha. On the plus side I am currently working on a 95-98% review for an album that only came out ten months ago, so that's progress I suppose. Obviously there's nothing to be done about people who do it, but it's an interesting enough topic to discuss, I'd like to see a few kneejerk 100% reviewers pop up here and see how their minds work.
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caspian
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 6:35 am 
 

It's a fair call, and I'm guilty of doing it occasionally myself. I think I have about 15 100%-ers and maybe 5 of them aren't really worthy. I think most of them have ended up being at least 90%+ though- still an excellent album.

As someone who does occasionally do it, I can simply relate to the fact that it's me getting super excited about something and badly wanting to express that. I get why dudes do it, for sure.
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hells_unicorn
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 1:22 pm 
 

I had a bit of a reputation myself as being Mr. 100%, particularly back in 2006-2007 when I gave the bulk of my perfect scores to my favorite power metal albums, some of them released the same year. I'm starting to rethink some of those scores and revising them down a little (already did this with my At Vance reviews and will probably do the same with my King Diamond reviews and a few others). I can say with full confidence that my perfect scores for Lost Horizon's 2 albums and Pagan's Mind's "Celestial Entrance" are not changing since I've been listening to all of those albums at least a couple times a month over the past 7-8 years. Same goes with "Effigy Of The Forgotten" and "Darkness Descends", though maybe a little less frequently.

I think part of the idea of giving a 100% to a brand new album comes from being inexperienced as a reviewer and writing based solely on the euphoria of having a new album from your favorite band. That said, I don't think that there is such a thing as having too many positive or negative reviews, some people just hate almost everything and vice versa. As long as it's properly justified, I won't fault someone for not having an album review score below 80%, or only a couple out of a hundred above said score.
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Zodijackyl
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 2:43 pm 
 

Yes, a lot of newbie reviewers use it egregiously and will never even complete a body of work where it contrasts effectively. I think that just about anyone who even reads this forum is more aware of reviewing and how things reflect their works as a whole. Many users are simply very casual to the score of their reviews, but the same can be said for their writing, their listening... you know. There's not really anything we can systematically do about it, other than personally disregarding review scores.

There are several difficult aspects of review scoring - I personally pick the score more as an afterthought, after I have written the reviews. I don't even use scores and rarely include review titles in the zine I contribute to, so those are admittedly hastily picked. I really don't think scores are that significant that I should analyze them much, even though I often adjust scores over time as I seem to form more of a system with them. I never started out with a system of review scoring, but I have sort of figured out that 80%+ is stuff that I go back to listen to more than on a rare occasion, and some stuff in the 70%s is occasionally listened to. There are other factors though, like the place of albums in discographies where I don't really prefer an album, but I find it interesting to listen to and consider how the band evolved. On the other end, 0% reviews are tough to score because when I react negatively enough to give an album a really low rating, it's often hard to pick out a few positive aspects that aren't overwhelmed by my complete disgust with the music.

Most of my 100% reviews have been albums that were relatively new to me. Most of the time, I just don't feel the need to write another review for some classics, or even some that don't have many reviews on the site. I look at the five 100% reviews that I have published:

Darkest Hour - The Eternal Return - I wrote this one quite quickly, I had the album before it was released, but I still only took under a month to review it. I ended up dropping the score to 99% later as I decided that there was another album that did something very similar but one degree better.

Unanimated - Ancient God of Evil - I had become familiar with this album maybe a year before writing this review, I think I had heard it many years before, but had only gotten into it in 2011. I'd still consider it a 100% album.

Morbid Angel - Illud Divinum Insanus - I really didn't know what to think of it when I first heard it, and I made a point of not rushing to judge it, though it seemed like everyone already had their opinion when I got the CD a few days before release. I gave it quite a bit of time, eight months or so, and thought about it a lot. I reviewed it when I thought I was ready to review it - when I had sorted out all of the thoughts to the point of being able to right about then. Still a 100% to me.

Bound By Entrails - The Stars Bode You Farewell - The fastest 100% I ever gave. I had a bunch of promos and I actually missed this one, then realized it when I wrapped up everything else after a trip to MDF where I got a few more promos that I had already reviewed. I felt really bad and had to email back because I realized the promo code I had gotten was only for two tracks! Oddly enough, when I first saw the band's MA page, I wasn't very enthusiastic but decided to review it anyway. Since I had taken so long to get started, I listened a lot. Had I reviewed this after the first time I heard it, I probably would've settled around 65% - it took me a long time to start writing though, as there were a lot of moments on the album where I needed to hear it again because I wasn't sure about it. I resolved to listen to the album a lot until I finished the damn review. I ended up listening to it 1-3 times almost every night while playing video games, until around a month later, I finally wrote most of the review, and wrapped it up. While writing it, it gained even more ground in my mind. There were technical flaws, but the whole thing was a very coherent and immersing vision that I really couldn't say it wasn't one of the best albums I have ever heard. Still stands at 100%.

Shok Paris - Steel and Starlight - I became familiar with this in the past few years, and it always registered as being a really great, unique album. When I finally reviewed it, I decided to give it the 100% rating because I can't say there's a better, nor more distinct performance in that style.

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Thumbman
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 3:17 pm 
 

I think that at the very least you should give a 100%er a few months before listening. I think in a lot of cases "I got it as a promo" still isn't a great excuse because a lot of the time you don't get the album more than 2 months (and usually less than that) in advance. However, I won't pretend to be an expert on this though, because I've only been getting promos regularly for about a month now. All the 100s I have gave I still stand by (although I should probably rewrite my Skagos one). I don't think they should be rushed. There are a few albums I thought I'd give 100 when I first heard them and would no longer do so. It is indeed very lame when a wave of fanboys, frothing at the mouth, give an album 100% right after it comes out (like the new Sabbath) - and yeah, these people are almost never regular reviewers.
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DarkWolfXV
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 7:59 pm 
 

Zodijackyl wrote:
Morbid Angel - Illud Divinum Insanus - I really didn't know what to think of it when I first heard it, and I made a point of not rushing to judge it, though it seemed like everyone already had their opinion when I got the CD a few days before release. I gave it quite a bit of time, eight months or so, and thought about it a lot. I reviewed it when I thought I was ready to review it - when I had sorted out all of the thoughts to the point of being able to right about then. Still a 100% to me.


Im not sure if you are serious right here and right now, but the tone of that review was kind of sarcastic and troll-ish which always seemed to me like you wrote that review just to upset people. The last line of it makes me think it is indeed a joke review.
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XcKyle93
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 10:04 pm 
 

I submitted my first review yesterday (80%), and though there are a few albums that I would definitely give 100%, I am going to wait until I have reviewed more albums because I want those 100% reviews to be truly great.

I do see where the OP is coming from, especially with overzealous fanboys (if that isn't redundant or anything). I also think that even if two scores for an album are identical in magnitude, they can mean quite different things depending on the amount of time that has passed between an album's release and the review.
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Thumbman
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 08, 2013 11:41 pm 
 

DarkWolfXV wrote:
Zodijackyl wrote:
Morbid Angel - Illud Divinum Insanus - I really didn't know what to think of it when I first heard it, and I made a point of not rushing to judge it, though it seemed like everyone already had their opinion when I got the CD a few days before release. I gave it quite a bit of time, eight months or so, and thought about it a lot. I reviewed it when I thought I was ready to review it - when I had sorted out all of the thoughts to the point of being able to right about then. Still a 100% to me.


Im not sure if you are serious right here and right now, but the tone of that review was kind of sarcastic and troll-ish which always seemed to me like you wrote that review just to upset people. The last line of it makes me think it is indeed a joke review.

I've asked him about it before, it's not a joke or anything.
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DarkWolfXV
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 09, 2013 9:59 am 
 

dystopia4 wrote:
I've asked him about it before, it's not a joke or anything.


Oh, okay. It's okay to like Illud Divinum Insanus, just the tone of that review made me think he is joking.
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kluseba
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 16, 2013 9:47 pm 
 

I think that such a thing as pure perfection in arts doesn't exist. On the other side, I guess that absolute bullshit doesn't exist either. I have given several albums 99% and they are definitely my absolute favourites since their releases. I have also given a 1% rating to a record that is still the worst thing I have listened to in my life. My opinions really didn't change on these records. Many people might not agree on my opinions and that's okay but I don't do any fanboy or bashing writing and wouldn't change anything in any of my reviews apart of a few grammar mistakes. English is only my third language after all, so that's just human. But I would never give records 0% or 100% ratings.

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lord_ghengis
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 17, 2013 1:56 am 
 

I tend to use 100% or 0% as "Maximum Enjoyment" or "Maximum Displeasure" rather than utter "perfection", since technical perfection is not only unachievable, (do you have a riff you like most? therefore the album is imperfect because the other riffs aren't as good) thus limiting your range of scores abritarily to something like 3-97 or some shite, but also because really quite a useless way of actually summing up the quality of a release. If something is produced professionally but is literally sickening to me, there is no reason that some technical upside should really be a factor compared to genuine awfulness. Likewise, if technically speaking a drummer hits the rim of his snare by accident a few times, does that necessarily harm my enjoyment at all?
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Subrick
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PostPosted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 2:16 am 
 

If anything, an accidental rimshot would make me like the drum production a bit more, because it shows that there's an actual person playing the instrument and not just something tinkered around with in a computer later on.
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lord_ghengis
Still Standing After 38 Beers... hic

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 21, 2013 5:56 am 
 

Way to miss the point.
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Subrick
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 23, 2013 6:58 pm 
 

Oh I got your point. I just chose to make my post out of that one sentence at the end.
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~Guest 226319
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PostPosted: Sat Aug 24, 2013 11:58 am 
 

Some of the fast reviewers are basically doing promo work themselves. Something to keep in mind.

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sourlows
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 5:38 am 
 

I see OP's point, but I think reviewers who have a lot of experience writing or even just listening know what a 100% album sounds like to them when they hear it. If autothrall gives something 100% on the day it's released I'm not going to be too skeptical; I may not agree with his evaluation, but I'm pretty sure that he is sure about his score, at least in comparison to inexperienced writers/listeners/young people.

When I was 15 I probably would've given Death's Symbolic a 100% because at the time it was very captivating for me. In that moment it was definitely a 100% album, but fast forward two or three years later and I barely listened to it at all any more. Conversely, albums that I might not have considered 100% albums upon first listen, such as Beneath the Columns of Abandoned Gods by Funebrarum (I saw the 2009 album mentioned earlier so I had to stick with the Funebrarum theme), have stayed in my playlist for much, much longer, and are in retrospect what I would personally consider true 100% albums. It has already been touched on but I think experience plays a huge role and when you are young you just blow your load a bit prematurely over some albums and you can't predict as well what you will still love five or ten years later as you can when you're a bit more weathered.

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Zodijackyl
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 7:51 pm 
 

John_Sunlight wrote:
Some of the fast reviewers are basically doing promo work themselves. Something to keep in mind.


Very true, reminds me of one semi-prolific reviewer who I don't think has every written a single criticism and just mechanically cranks out praise for whatever promos are sent to him.

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Zerberus
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 4:16 am 
 

I don't think I've ever given a 100% review... I mostly review demo and EP stuff from upcoming bands, and while there are lots of 70 or 80% in there only a select few have I given 90%. 100% should be reserved for immortal classics where every aspect, every track in itself captivates the listener.
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Andromeda_Unchained
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PostPosted: Sun Sep 15, 2013 5:38 pm 
 

Yeah, I agree with the OP. I don't take all that many 100% reviews seriously. I think I've give out three here which I'll gladly stand by. I know from personal experience that when you're young and new to this reviewing lark that you're more inclined to dish out perfect scores (I've been guilty of such elsewhere), which is why I take a lot of reviews with a pinch of salt.

Whoever mentioned the newbies not establishing a body of work, good point. In the past when I've read 100% review I'd often check the reviewers other reviews, and so many times it was three or four positive reviews submitted years ago and nothing since.

I'm also sure a lot of people come on to give glowing reviews to their friends' bands...

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hakarl
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 4:53 am 
 

Zerberus wrote:
I don't think I've ever given a 100% review... I mostly review demo and EP stuff from upcoming bands, and while there are lots of 70 or 80% in there only a select few have I given 90%. 100% should be reserved for immortal classics where every aspect, every track in itself captivates the listener.

I agree with the sentiment, but why every track? That is a completely arbitrary limitation, to be honest.

Something I'm not entirely decided on myself is the effect of filler material on ratings. Consider an album of 35 minutes, for example. Every moment is excellent, and the album deserves a 100% for it. It's quite short though, isn't it? What if there were three more songs that aren't quite up to par with the rest. If one was to assess the score based on average track quality, the album's score would drop somewhat, let's say to 95%. It doesn't seem entirely logical, since there's a full-length's worth of 100% material, and its quality is not diminished by the inclusion of somewhat less impressive tracks.

The problem is when there is some outright shitty material to go with excellent music. Personally I'm willing to ignore some crap if clearly the majority of the music is excellent, but ultimately, many of my ratings are based on the impression the album gives. My conclusion is to echo what many others have said: overanalysing ratings is pointless and misleading. They serve to give a fairly good representation of how highly the reviewer rates the music, but there is nothing magical about the difference between 99% and 100% more so than between 67% and 68%.
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Zerberus
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 5:09 am 
 

Ilwhyan wrote:
I agree with the sentiment, but why every track? That is a completely arbitrary limitation, to be honest.

Something I'm not entirely decided on myself is the effect of filler material on ratings. Consider an album of 35 minutes, for example. Every moment is excellent, and the album deserves a 100% for it. It's quite short though, isn't it? What if there were three more songs that aren't quite up to par with the rest. If one was to assess the score based on average track quality, the album's score would drop somewhat, let's say to 95%. It doesn't seem entirely logical, since there's a full-length's worth of 100% material, and its quality is not diminished by the inclusion of somewhat less impressive tracks.

The problem is when there is some outright shitty material to go with excellent music. Personally I'm willing to ignore some crap if clearly the majority of the music is excellent, but ultimately, many of my ratings are based on the impression the album gives. My conclusion is to echo what many others have said: overanalysing ratings is pointless and misleading. They serve to give a fairly good representation of how highly the reviewer rates the music, but there is nothing magical about the difference between 99% and 100% more so than between 67% and 68%.


Sure, if a track somehow contributes to the album even if the track in itself isn't a memorable classic I suppose it can still get a 100% rating, but to me this notion mainly works with intro/outros or ambient interludes or stuff like that which contributes to the atmosphere of the album.

The second thing about having a 100% album with a couple of filler tracks often detracting from the overall score, to me, is often about an album as a whole. 35 minutes of great material worth a 10/10 score can easily be numbed down by adding a few tracks that aren't up to par in my book as this lowers the value of the album's wholesomeness.

I can't really see the idea of overanalysing the second digit either, though. The difference between 77% and 78% is so minuscule that it's completely unnecessary to me. I only use 10/20/30 and so on exactly because of this.
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lord_ghengis
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 5:22 am 
 

I like the extra detail in the second number, obviously there isn't much between 77 and 78 but there is fair difference between say 75 and 84, which is where the extra detail more less lets me demonstrate the difference between a "soft 8" and a "hard 7". Still pretty minor, but when I have to use a ten point scale on another site I find it oddly frustrating.
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Zerberus
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 5:25 am 
 

lord_ghengis wrote:
I like the extra detail in the second number, obviously there isn't much between 77 and 78 but there is fair difference between say 75 and 84, which is where the extra detail more less lets me demonstrate the difference between a "soft 8" and a "hard 7". Still pretty minor, but when I have to use a ten point scale on another site I find it oddly frustrating.


There are a few times where I feel a 10 point scale has its shortcomings, but usually I feel more towards one rather than the other if I'm in doubt. A few times I've been really tempted to use a .5 though
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Andromeda_Unchained
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 6:40 am 
 

lord_ghengis wrote:
I like the extra detail in the second number, obviously there isn't much between 77 and 78 but there is fair difference between say 75 and 84, which is where the extra detail more less lets me demonstrate the difference between a "soft 8" and a "hard 7". Still pretty minor, but when I have to use a ten point scale on another site I find it oddly frustrating.


^This.

I tend to try use the odd second digits to break things up a bit. Say for instance I gave two albums a 7, chances are I might like one of them a little better which is where the second digit comes in handy.

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sushiman
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 5:23 am 
 

Isn't this more a timing thing than a scoring thing? I'll accept that what seems like 100% awesome now might not do in six months, particularly to new reviewers (I was a bit like this myself when I got started). But by the same token, something you've scored a 67% or a 24% might still have slid up or down in your esteem in that time, particularly those sleeper albums that unlock their wonders slowly. There are no bad scores, just bad reviewers.

It doesn't matter too much though, since it has been possible for a while to change the score of your MA review without resubmitting. If the reviewer feels that strongly that he has given out an undeserved 100%, or any other score, a lot of the time they will likely go and tweak it.

As always then it comes down to the reviewer. Personally if I see a 100% (or 0%) review I often skip it (as I just did the 98% scored Vanitas reviewing calling the album the pinnacle of modern extreme metal), unless it is by writers like autothrall, hells unicorn, caspian and a few others who I know are capable of justifying these scores. Not to mention entertaining me, of course.

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InnesI
The Goat Fucker

Joined: Sat Jun 01, 2013 3:19 pm
Posts: 2187
PostPosted: Thu Sep 26, 2013 3:49 am 
 

The bad thing about Metal Archives is that anyone can write a review - but it is also a strength. Obviously we get reviews by fan-boys, people who overrate certain albums and/or bands to a ridiculous degree. However in general I find that this is balanced nicely with the reviewers who try to be more objective as well as the reviewers who seem to have a personal agenda towards certain albums or bands. At least with albums that have several reviews the average score generally reflects public sentiments pretty darn good.

I often pick and choose which reviews I read. I don't have a favorite reviewer but if someone clearly gives an album a really high or really low score I usually dismiss it. And quite often, if I do read what they write, I feel justified in skipping those reviews. You can usually tell quite easily who knows what they are talking about and who doesn't (and that doesn't mean I have to agree with what they write).

In general though I would probably not give any album either 100% or 0%. I never came across an album that was either so abysmal or so damn perfect it justifies such a rating. Perhaps my criteria is to strict but perfection to me is pretty much impossible to reach. To me giving an album 100% is almost as weird as an athlete claiming to have given 110% in a given competition - its impossible :)
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Riffs
Metalhead

Joined: Wed Oct 31, 2012 1:48 am
Posts: 1077
Location: Montréal, Québec
PostPosted: Mon Oct 14, 2013 2:58 pm 
 

I think there are two separate problems here.

1. Reviewers who may be jumping to conclusions too fast, write reviews very early based on pure emotions and very little thoughts.

2. People who want to make strong "statements" or see things in black and white. They tend to distribute very high and very low scores because they tend to put things into two piles, one being "genius" and the other being "shit".

Both problems can intersect in reviews. There's not much you can do about either. Of course, maturity helps, as does listening to an album for a while but even a person that has pretty consistent tastes can change his opinion on an album.

As it is, the main drawback is that albums with few (or worse, only one) reviews can have a pretty weird score. It only takes one 0% or 100% review to impact greatly sometimes. There's not much that can be done about that but one thing that would be really cool is to have a second rating. One based on users. That way, you'd have the critical rating, backed by reviews but also how users at large see the album. Would also be helpful when you're looking for more stuff. For instance, searching for the highest doom metal album of 1998, from best rating to worse.
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VibrationsOfDoom
Mallcore Kid

Joined: Sun Aug 29, 2004 4:04 pm
Posts: 23
Location: United States
PostPosted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 5:50 pm 
 

...I've been reviewing albums for about, oh, 22 years now... And yes, I have given out 100's, sometimes maybe 1 an issue if that. The highest score I've ever given to a CD is I think 110, and that's because it's one that I have not only enjoyed and absolutely loved with no flaws whatsoever, but THIS album to me is one that has become sort of a "yardstick" by which I am looking at (not judging) other albums by. That album is Caladan Brood's latest release. To me, that's your "once in a generation" type of album, even though several people are going to say "they're Summoning clones."

There's a good, solid reason why I only publish an issue every three to four months. Those CD's I get are listened to NO LESS than 10 times each, and sometimes I get entranced with an album at work and listen to it all damn day... With Caladan Brood, I literally couldn't listen to much else for about two weeks... Being THAT blown away by an album and STILL feeling EXACTLY the same way two weeks later; that's what the pinnacle of success is for me. Some artists have scored 90's and up for the duration of their careers (Agalloch, The Howling Void are two that spring to mind), while some bounce around the spectrum quite a bit. I do NOT feel comfortable putting numbers to albums until I can read EVERY song title and know how it goes in my head. Familiarity has changed a score for me over the days and weeks I've dissected it...

Also too, I do NOT judge on a mathematical scale (for instance: 10 song album, one is bad, the others are great so instant 90?! I don't think so). For me it has to FEEL like a 90... Rarely ever do I commit to a mathematical scale; it's MERELY a starting point when I'm having trouble feeling out a score. Once again, my methods may help someone or may not; just because I've been dissecting and reviewing albums for 22 years does NOT make me an expert. Probably not even a professional (lol). But I give very careful thought to what I review in my publication. 22 years later and I STILL love music, which is why I don't write a whole slew of bad reviews. It's hard to listen to a bad album over and over again, so I prefer to dwell on those albums that either challenge my reviewing skills, that are important to me in some way or another, or I just absolutely enjoy and have to tell someone else about it. I consider myself someone who is charged with helping people find those great and amazing bands; most of the interviews I do will usually ONLY be with bands I enjoy...

Just my 2 cents here...

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