It's not going too well. The issue is that a lot of albums I feel are definitely 4/5 material I don't ever want to listen to. The only thing is that I notice a lot of people are pretty often going over stuff that's 3.5/4.0 in their own ratings. I'm trying to figure out based on this if I need to gravitate my rating system a little bit lower so at the very least my 4.0 rating is stuff I want to hear again.

Of course this isn't really relevant to anything. I just like to keep ratings of my collection for personal organization.

On the site, nearly all of the notable reviewers have gone to using a system whereby 50% represents a total emotional void (IE; a blank tape) and anything above that is actively enjoyed to some degree and everything below is actively unappreciated to some degree. The system was developed by some MAer... It's a pretty good system, and gives you a concrete base from which to work out translating complex intellectual and emotional sentiments into a statistical representation of those ideas.

As for reviews tending to be high, it comes from two sources; one being that people tend to prefer to review things they like rather than dislike because reviewing things you don't like entails listening to things you don't like, which is a hassle, and the fact that most things really aren't too bad or great and merit a decent score. For those using the system described above that would be something around a 50%. The rating systems used in many other places (and by some here) seem to be skewed on other sites towards placing what would be lower rated scores higher on the scale, reflecting the American grading system whereby a C, around 70, which corresponds to a 3.5 on a 5 point scale is considered average despite being much closer to the higher end of the scale than the lower end. This is caused by the fact that the F score constitutes a larger part of the total number of possible scores than any of the other letter grades, so while C seems to be in the middle of possible scores it's actually on the high end.

Hope that helps.

I think it's more to do with the fact that most students are not so stupid that getting a 70% is considered something relatively unspecial. I feel this is moreso the case with music due to people not actively seeking out shit music unless they're sadists.

Is there some sort of official writeup of the system or is it just common knowledge now? Perhaps you might have a link or a search term I could use :}

This should be in the review section.

A lot of people don't like using the grading system that is like the one used in North American schools. I think it works fine. Anything over 75% I'd listen to again. 80s are good and 90s are exceptional.

I'm kind of weird in that I use 60% as about my average, leaving the 0-10% to things that are basically offensive to art itself.

As a general question, what ranges would you put the following in:

- Albums that you'd have no issues recommending to someone but never really want to listen to?
- Albums that you don't want to listen to that often, but do hear occasionally?
- Albums that weren't bad but never/rarely got your interest throughout the album?

- this varies a little depending on the genre, but generally 50 to 60
- 60 to 80 (I only listen to stuff in the 82 and above regularly)
- 40 to 50 for the most part.

slowly working on getting my ratings system increasingly consistent. Currently anything over 90 is an album that I think is really, really good and would recommend to anybody. 70 is the point at which I can say I actually enjoy the album. 50 is mediocre, might have a few good bits but overall it's like listening to a blank tape- i.e it doesn't affect my existence one way or the other. anything under 30 has nothing to offer. anything under 10 is genuinely horrible and offends me throughout the album's playtime.

Although I should adjust a few scores I gave to a few albums, my rating scale is based on a system where 50 means mediocre. A lot of times albums in the 30's and 40's have a few good songs, so the album is still worth it if you can get it really, really cheap. And yes, I'll even give those albums a spin now and then, although rarely from start to finish.

3 on a 5 point scale may be average, but how much time do you want to spend on albums that are merely average? Would an album full of average tracks ever be found in your CD player? Not mine.

After a while, I found that the 5 point scale pointed out the good tracks, but not necessarily the good albums. Averaging out all the individual track ratings, I found that albums I consider good actually rate 3.33 - 3.50.

I hand out 1s to only the tracks that I would never deliberately listen to again. Not only that purely awful shit, of which there is a lot, but also ambient tracks, tracks with extended periods of silence (which I find annoying) and non-musical intros. I make some concessions with the intros - if they're around a minute or less I don't include it in the album score.

Conversely, 5s are only handed out to a track that is awesome. This is the head banging, air guitar inspiring, roar at the clouds METAL. Right now in my music collection I have some 4100 individual tracks, 67 of which are 5s. So they're kind of rare.

Everything else is either like it (4), ok (3), or not so much (2).

Being mathematically strict, your average must be 55%, exactly between 10% and 100%, having that you exclude the range 0-10% because those are not posible ratings in your opinion (for actual music).

That depends where you study and how strict are your teachers. Take France for instance, where the grades go from 0 to 20. Getting 16/20 in a good French institution is considered to be an excellent grade.

You can't automatically convert grading systems. Maybe in one place getting a 70% isn't special, while in others it might be a great achievement. You also need to take into account grade inflations. A teacher might give A to pretty much everyone in his class, but only the outstanding student will get a A+. To everyone who doesn't know the teacher, an A might seem like a good grade, while in fact it isn't.

If I actively dislike an album I'd give it a very low rating (0-10), a few points may be afforded for other aspects like technical skill or arrangement, song structure etc.

50% is average in my book. An album getting a 50 is perfectly listenable and enjoyable. Just not something that leaves a mark on you (you don't mind if that music plays, but you wouldn't seek it out kind of thing).

It goes something like:
0-10: Terrible/Unlistenable
10-20 Listenable but exceedingly boring.
20-30 Has one or two decent songs on a bad album (think of any pop album that has a tolerable single)
30-40 Has a few decent (not good, decent) songs but some outright unpleasant ones.
40-50 Perfectly listenable but completely inoffensive and devoid of anything interesting
50-60 One, maybe two good (good, not just decent) songs.
60-70 More than a couple good songs, but largely filler.
70-80 An album that I'd gladly listen to and enjoy but not very often.
80-90 Good album. Will get plenty of plays, but just doesn't have that little something that makes an album legendary.
90-100 An album you cannot go wrong with. Great from start to finish. And holds a special place in my cold, black heart.

Of course I deduct some if an album is not bad in general, but annoys me personally. Could be bad production, annoying performer, outright unpleasant lyrics. Things that I don't like but otherwise there's nothing wrong with the music.

Quoted from my user page:

Scoring system:
91%-100%: An absolutely astonishing album. These albums almost always redefine my views of the genre they're associated with. Not encountered often in my ratings, and a must-own for metal listeners of any sort.
81%-90%: Very great album. It knows what it's trying to accomplish and it does what it sets out to do. Well-executed and rare. Some people are going to dislike it, but fuck them.
71%-80%: A moderately good album. Has some flaws, but worth a listen, and at least a few of the tracks will stick with you. Worth checking out if you like the genre.
61%-70%: A decent album. Might have a severe flaw or two. Diehard fans of the genre will like it, but not many others.
51%-60%: A mediocre album. Has quite a few flaws and can fall on its face quite a few times, but it still has enjoyable moments.
41%-50%: A somewhat bad album. These albums often have issues that severely bring down the listening experience, and have little to no positives to bring it back.
31%-40%: A bad album. If you like anything about it, it'll be two tracks or so. It's got several things seriously wrong with it, and I wouldn't spend anything more than two dollars on it.
21%-30%: A horrendous album. One good track, at most. Music stops becoming dull and literally becomes irritating to listen to.
11%-20%: A "Dear Lord, what the fuck is this!?" reaction-bearing album. I have trouble grasping how the artists of the album could create something so terrible. It will not appeal to anyone whatsoever.
0%-10%: An entirely shit album. These are the albums that are so bad, that while listening to them, I literally either laughed at the band's stupidity or I cried at the fact that it was so despicable. Their CDs only serve the purpose of Frisbees, and the music's only purpose is to raise my opinion of normally mediocre albums. I suppose they are essential to hear anyway if you're a musician, as they are the best guide of how music shouldn't sound.

These in depth descriptions of highly regimented score "levels" seem a bit overwrought. Pretty sure people can discern what you are getting at with your scores from your reviews...

Back when I had only ten reviews or so, I gave two albums an approximately identical rating but I thought entirely differently of them. Hell, I gave Whitechapel's second album a 40% but I found it unlistenable aside from two songs. I decided I had to come up with some sort of system so I could create some sort of unity in my reviews. It's available to the public, yes, but it helps me more than it helps them.

5/5 - Practically perfect. I could count on one hand the number of albums I would give this.
4/5 - Very good album that I would often listen to but would likely have 1 or 2 tracks that have some dull moments
3/5 - Good album and sometimes gets a listen from me
2/5 - A little below average and may get 1 or 2 tracks I will listen to from time to time.
1/5 - crap and I won't listen to anymore, not even a song.

I go with a 50% as average. A 95 for example would be a high 4.5 or low 5/5 for me. I use this method as it is a linear scale and not a curve scale like many people use here (American school system is much to blame).

I didn't think they did since I've seen many albums being described as absolutely terrible yet having scores of 30-40%.