Are the stars relative to the artist's previous work? Compared with their most direct competitors? To denote whether the discerning record buyer should buy it or steer clear? To indicate how many tracks should be copied over to your iPod? And what's the scale? Is it ghastly to orgasmically great or just rather poor to pretty good?

So many questions to resolve, surely it's quicker just to read the review, isn't it?

....whether this plea will reach any ears unsullied by the previous ventings of opinion, Handsome*, as it really does seem that an awful lot of the Word reading folk prefer an absence of stars, and in an also deliberately small number of reviews. There will be the usual gush of dismay at your post, I suspect. However, given your wider reading, and, it seems, that of many of our compadres, most of us are devouring all we can, and so will gain reinforcement of our preconceptions from somewhere eventually.
(*Its a long time since I've referred directly to anyone by your soubriquet of choice, it's curiously liberating....)

Just imagine everything has three stars.

I care not whether word has star ratings or not, although it would probably mean I would have to invest slightly less energy in a review if there was a handy rating at the end of it and I'm a lazy bugger so I'll slip off the fence onto that of the debate.

But not stars, that's booooorrrrring. Metal Hammer have fists, Kerrang have Ks, what could Word have? Ws? Richard Thompsons perhaps? Wire boxsets?

But I do get irritated when a review contains basically the press release or a review of the band's history. Or if it clear that the reviewer is never likely to appreciate that type of music/artist. At least the 70s/80s trend is over for reviews where you end up reading and re-reading and ask yourself: 'so, is it any good?'

Like the TV programme stars are irrelevant. Record Collector gave a 2 star review to a cd I had just ordered - it kind of dimmed my eager anticipation of receiving my new purchase. I needn't have worried I was right, they were wrong. Trust your own instincts over that of the professionals as they are like Wall Street Bankers - they get it wrong!!

method of scoring. As shown below by The Word review committee.

A review isn't fact or the definitive truth about an album; it's one person's opinion of it. Giving a star rating to something is quantifying its quality, which is surely subjective either. I would suggest that star ratings tend to get assumed to be the opinion (or score) of the magazine in general, whereas non-star reviews are much more impersonal. For example, if I were talking to someone about a new release, I would say:

"Q magazine (or Uncut or whoever) gave it x stars"

but

"Kate Mossman (or Matt Hall or whoever) said it was great/awful/a fair effort"

My point being getting rid of stars means you have to read the review (which is a good thing, journalists would prefer to have their pieces read I assume) and you see a review more for what it is.

I think the only time a star-rating system could work is something like the ratings on Lovefilm, where the star-rating given is the average star-rating given based on data from hundreds of users.

At the end of the day it depends what you want from the review. Personally a good or bad review of an album by and artist that I like is not going to change my decision on whether I will buy that album.

Any reviewer has a certain "taste" in music and if its a artist / group / genre that they simply do not have an affinity for, they will never give a good review, making a whole mockery of any ratings system. I have seen this often with "unfashionable" artists (Genesis are a great example) in some lesser magazines. I'm sure the logistics of matching albums for review with the "correct" reviewer are far too complex to manage.

What I do like to see from reviews is that on artists that I am not familiar with, the review gives me a feel for what to expect and not necessarily how good it is. One of the few good things that Q did was have the sidebars that stated "if you like this, try this...", which very simply gave me an immediate impression of the album.

The other question on reviews is that with the advent of Amazon etc etc and the multitude of comments for each album, which is more valid - the "professional" (and maybe biased) review of a music journalist or the voice of the people. Although much like opinion polls, the ones that can be bothered to leave comments tend to be those with strong opinions (i.e. hardcore fans). And it still puzzles me how people can post reviews on Amazon weeks before the album is released........

vote for stars.

If I see a review of an act I've never heard of, I'll be honest, I generally ignore it. Now if it had 4 or 5 stars above it that would probably pique my interest and it's likely I would read it (or even 1 star - nothing as entertaining as a good hatchet job!).

This morning I read DH's review of the animated elephant/dope/ shagging animal rights/ profanity peppered movie - (forgot it's name - did you guess that?) and it was hilair!
If he'd given it two stars I would never have read it.

Start a feature on the Word website where us punters can affect the star rating of an album release. To be egalitarian, each album starts off with a ***** star rating and this then either drops or remains constant as each vote comes in.

It would be amusing to see what would happen to the new Oasis album...

When he was working on Football365, he used to get very tetchy in the discussion forum when people mentioned that, as Editor of Q, he didn't even review The Stone Roses album when it came out, never mind giving it a bad one. He presided over Q magazine missing baggy/Madchester and was always playing just-too-late catch-up.

**
Though well stated, this style of argument has been somewhat oveplayed of late, and it is the sound of nothing new that is the most memorable thing about it. Whilst the originator is obviously a decent enough cove, it would be more refreshing for his supporters and protagonists to have half an ear on the alternatives. This years Blur vs Oasis, when the answer all along may be Tindersticks.
If you like this you'll love: Cover Star Guessing /Editors (don't care records)
Download :

http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/whats-wrong-with-stars

(Sorry if this sounds a tad sarky, not meaning to put off newer readers but this one is the most frequent bus round these parts)

When I read reviews I rarely notice the stars if they are there, it's all subjective and a marks-out-of-five idea is pretty meaningless. Why not buy less magazines and read all the reviews?

... the star/vote thing is already well established at http://www.rateyourmusic.com/

*** out of 5.

The magazine that devoted 50 pages to Oasis last month, have used two to tell us all what we'd expected. The new album is another lukewarm slab of 'will this do?' Then we have a cover feature on AC/DC, a lead Metallica album review and they've now bugled that Bat Out Of Hell is a classic song (!) in their annual 'let's hand something out to whoever's in the country' awards. Shame. I used to love it, but the continuing sledgehammering of the big and bland has turned it into one of the worst wastes of paper ever

but only because if something's got one or two stars then I want to know why. Five stars are often predictable. Look at Heat magazine (if you dare - I browse for work) - everything gets four or five stars. It makes a mockery of the star system. It could hardly be relied upon for serious critical judgment. It knows what its readers like and rates accordingly. So why the need for the stars at all?

my stars being interviewed for the magazine features and not in the backend of the mag.