What's wrong with stars?
Posted by notinventedhere on 22 July 2008 - 12:42am.
The Word is a great magazine. Great writing, passion for music, humour, trainspotterism, etc, etc. But one thing bugs me about the CD reviews - the lack of a rating. Why? Because you can wade through a review sometimes and at the end still say, is it any good? Those stars at the top tell you what the reviewer really thinks. Sometimes that means you won't even bother reading the review, I know, but hey Word-smiths, aren't you here to help us poor punters with limited time on our hands? And we might read the one star review to enjoy the put down (especially if you've grown up reading the NME).
Put your stars where your mouthes are, I say!
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I have said this before
Magazines who attempt to adhere a numerical value to something as qualitative and subjective as music, appear to be saying the following:
1. They don't trust their writers to convey their opinion of an album in the body of their review.
2. They don't believe their readers bother to read said reviews.
When I hear someone banding around terms such as 'four-stars' or 'nine out of ten' in the context of music, my primal instinct is to throw a copy of the album in question hard at their face and then ask how many stars they can see.
The true beneficiaries of the star-based review system are the publicity departments of record companies, who are able to garnish their advertisements with these absurd and ultimately meaningless accolades.
Yeah
What he said.
Yep,
What he said he said.
I recall Messrs Ellen, Hepworth et al making it explicit in the early issues that they didn't want to be like other music magazines, that in fact their reviews were more like discussions where the conclusion was left open ended. Keep doing the do please, no stars required.
I also recall them saying that they wouldn't put artists on the cover just because they had new product coming out and to a large extent, they 've remained true to this, but as a result, I would have thought a little more adventure in the cover artist could be explored, as the sentiment appeared to suggest the cover made fig all difference to sales.
I know, I know, it's another thread, a long, long time ago...
I sort of sympathise
I am easily drawn to star ratings...lets face it babies are now born in hospitals with star ratings, children and schools are the subject of league tables, our success is often judged by the salaries we achieve, and then finally when we die people say, "How old was he?". From the sperm to the worm we are surrounded by simplistic scores. Now though, I have come to to realise that life, culture and music in particular, is more complex and interesting than stars and numbers. Thats why the no-stars approach works for me......4/5 for daring to raise the subject though...
"From the sperm to the worm"
*****
Fabulous!
hate to poop on the parade
suspect that line isn't the posters own...think it's a line from West Side Story...
Don't care
Its new to me, and I will use it as if my own. No thought knowingly unthunk.
Jeez, "Are you talking to me? "
I dont know where it comes from but I dont generally footnote or credit blogs with the sources of sayings and phrases I commonly use...."Poop on the Parade" is that 'your' original or can you check with copyright first?
Is that the "are you talking to me" from Taxi Driver?
Or another?
What?
Taxi who? Do I need to talk to a lawyer?
Yes it is
In West Side Story, there's a whole pledging each other alegiance thing quite early on where they say "womb to tomb ?" "sperm to worm". It got changed to "birth to earth" in the film.
Now lets be fully referenced about our sources here
The phrase comes from the muscial West Side Story (1).
Footnotes:
(1) based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
And...
...like about 35 of his other plays, he borrowed the story from a previous source.
Someone!
call the lawyers!
Seeing
an album by my favourite band rated as a 4/5 and then reading 'if this were by someone else, it would have been 5/5' (Q, circa '95) told me all I needed to know about marking systems.
I love stars...
in the night sky. In music reviews, no.
Stars make me lazy
If you put stars on the reviews, I only read the good ones. Why would I want to find out about a crap album?
The Word way means I read everything even though sometimes I'm not sure if the reviewer thought it was anygood.
There are enough magazines that do stars.
Better
to know the reviewer so we know who to harangue at the Word Blog Halloween Party, depending if we agree/disagree with thir opinion.
Otherwise skip that section. Go straight to the tour pages.
One of the things I love about Word
is the fact that you have to read the review. Sometimes the writing is wonderful and sometimes woeful but if you want to know what the reviewer's point of view is, it has to be digested.
And I like that.
Weren't stars as a rating
Weren't stars as a rating system irrevocably compromised by Q awarding 5 of them to Be Here Now?
and Blur
Great Escape got 5. Whilst Grand Prix by Teenage Fanclub got 2. RIP stars.
And a further 5
to Ali Campbell's Big Love in 1995.
Stars don't tell you anything...
Without the actual review.The same writer could give the same "score" to a Radiohead album and a Motown compilation.
We need the review to tell us if it would suit our particular tastes,especially in a mag which covers such a wide range of music as The Word.