General Info

I feel I should include some basic info about how these reviews work. In simplest terms, I listen to the entire original album (if I can find it, if not I'll use whatever edition is readily available) and comment on the things I like and don't like. Then I use a simple 5-star rating system to score it. Here's how that works:

1-star: Hated it

2-star: Didn't hate it

3-star: Kinda liked it

4-star: Actually liked it

5-star: Loved it

I think that sums up how most people feel about music. It's not quite as simple as liking or not liking something, but it's not complicated enough to devise some algorithm to rank each album from 1 to 1,000. I figure most music I listen to will be pretty bland and at most I'll say either, "Eh, that's not too bad," or, "Meh, I've heard worse I guess." Those will be the 2 or 3 star reviews, the music that provokes little emotional response from me. Music that moves me to write paragraph upon paragraph... I'm betting there will be more in the 1-star category than anything else. That's just how my brain works.

And no, I won't be giving out half-stars. I don't know why people do that. If you're going to break it down to half-stars, why not just use a 10-star system instead of a 5-star system? I also won't give out zero stars. Essentially my system gives out 2-stars by default, and if an album makes me angry or makes me laugh at how terrible it is I take away one. Adding stars is done when an album makes me happier or intrigues me to some extent.

I also have this sorta-rule where if an album has four or five good songs on it I have to say it's good. Writing one good song is hard but does happen to the worst groups. Writing five good songs over a career can also happen by accident. But that many in the course of one album is impressive and sorta justifies the album's existence. Only sorta though. I won't preclude there being special cases where I have to break this rule. Shit music earned its name after all, and a polished turd is still a turd.