The Syndicate

thellama73 wrote:Oversteps is the best Autechre album. Discuss.

It's in my top 5.

thellama73 wrote:Don't you find the gap between 2.5 and 3.0 to be rather larger than in any other case?

You mean based on my text descriptions? I'm not the best with words, but nonetheless wanted to convey them rather than just numerical ratings alone. I also struggle to come up with a record that would fall in between those two categories off the top of my head.

Not sure though. It's naturally a work in progress and may benefit from some fine tuning. I'm happy with the numerical ratings I gave today though, just haven't maybe nailed down the accompanying text descriptions.

Random speculation... perhaps "marginally enjoyable" would be better. I think I'll change it to that.

EDIT: Yep, it is. Changed. Thanks for the observation.

So I started rating albums today. If any of you all actually care about following along whenever, here's my RYM page.

I decided to start the morning/ratings process with two of my all-time favorites, first my namesake, then its chronological follow-up (Signals), which set the tone for high-ranking albums (5.0 and 4.5 respectively). I don't intend on giving out 5-star ratings more than very seldom.

My rating scale is:
5.0 -- pinnacle of musical perfection
4.5 -- mindblowingly stunning
4.0 -- thoroughly outstanding
3.5 -- solidly awesome
3.0 -- marginally enjoyable
2.5 -- epitome of unimpressive
2.0 -- somewhat repulsive
1.5 -- waste of sound waves
1.0 -- horrendously putrid garbage
0.5 -- anti-music destroyer of ears

Listened to 11 albums today. It was a good day for music since I listened to a few of my current/all-time favorite bands (Rush, Fishmans, The Jesus and Mary Chain), but also a handful of releases that are relatively new to me that ended up in the "marginally enjoyable" range. Over the weekend I'm going to try to make sure to throw in plenty of music that's brand new to my collection as well.

2017 is going to be a year of musical discovery as much as possible, in stark contrast to how it's been for me since I started the PhD program. Very much looking forward to revisit old favorites and new material with this rating process.

thellama73 wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote: I thought we had similar music taste.

We do, but you gave Pawn Hearts one star, so I have to tease you about it.

I definitely don't agree with that now. I prefer Still Life and Godbluff, but Pawn Hearts would get a solid 3 from me now, I suspect. I'd need to give it a fresh listen though; it's been at least a year or two since I've heard it.

JaggedJimmyJay wrote:It's a good thing the RYM:OT forum is gone or they'd have made fun of your prog ratings.

Oh, I'm sure. Though I'm suspecting that current MP will be harsher on prog music than any past version of MP would have been. We'll see.

It may take a bit to find out though since I'm not necessarily going out of my way to rate anything, just in the course of normal listening habits. So it'll be weird to not have rated all these prog albums I spun the fuck out of years ago, but I have to start somewhere I guess!

thellama73 wrote:

MovingPictures07 wrote:So while I was active at ProgArchives almost 10 years ago I did some music reviews/ratings, but wasn't that prolific. Since then I've largely discovered music without reviewing or giving any ratings; even though I've used RYM ratings and reviews as a primary source of discovering new music for the last 5+ years, for example, I've never rated a single piece of music myself.

Starting tomorrow morning I think I'm going to try giving a quick rating on RYM to everything I'm listening to by the time each album is complete -- just a gut-based evaluation. It's daunting, but exciting, and as necessary for my current schedule will demand very little time commitment (since I won't be writing reviews). We'll see how long I can keep this up.

I look forward to disagreeing with your ratings.

I thought we had similar music taste.

So while I was active at ProgArchives almost 10 years ago I did some music reviews/ratings, but wasn't that prolific. Since then I've largely discovered music without reviewing or giving any ratings; even though I've used RYM ratings and reviews as a primary source of discovering new music for the last 5+ years, for example, I've never rated a single piece of music myself.

Starting tomorrow morning I think I'm going to try giving a quick rating on RYM to everything I'm listening to by the time each album is complete -- just a gut-based evaluation. It's daunting, but exciting, and as necessary for my current schedule will demand very little time commitment (since I won't be writing reviews). We'll see how long I can keep this up.

thellama73 wrote:My next post in the series is delayed because Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom is apparently out of print and hard to get a copy of. I'm expecting to receive it on Monday.

Oh man, you've never heard Rock Bottom? Prepare yourself for an awesome album. Love that one.

I love that album as well, definitely his best!

thellama73 wrote:I'm not sure what thread to put this in, but this is about rating music, so I guess it's as good a place as any. I've decided to listen to every album in the Pitchfork Top 100 Albums of the 1970s list and write a review of each one. I know a lot of them already, but I'm looking forward to discovering new stuff.

I posted the first entry tonight. The project can be found here.

Oh man, that's awesome! I should join you. At least in listening to them, not reviewing. Don't have the time or writing expertise for that.