Controversial opinions on metal

[Jreg]

Well, I'm very much skeptical about overrating albums. My ratings go very deep. Anything that gets a 90% or more from me I'm going to be calling an amazing album probably for the rest of my life (or my rating is wrong).

If there's a song on an album I don't particulary care for then that album is not worthy of a 100% because it's not 100% amazing all the way through. If there's something with the production or vocals of an album it will hold it back as well. I'm so through that I would even go far enough to say a shitty guitar solo or chorus would hold an album back from getting a 100%.

Not everyone is like me when rating an album, however, & I think there's a problem with that. Some people will listen to an album twice & say it's teh best album evar giving it 100% & the same thing happens with the 0% too. I honestly do not ever recall hearing a metal album that I hated so much I would give it a 0%.

You know what I think the problem is? The entire 0-100% rating system. That means there are 100 different possible ratings you can give any given album (or 101 if you count 0). How is that supposed to work? "Well, this record would get an 85%, but that I didn't like that trill in the solo on track 4 at 3:36, so I gave it an 84%." IMO, the more ratings you have to choose from, the more thorough and in-depth your analysis must be to effectively decide on a final score. Not that there's anything wrong with that principle in general, but in this case it seems excessive for the purposes of an album review.

In the few cases where I've reviewed there, I could only ballpark my rating to within 10 points and basically picked a random number in that range as my final choice. There are plenty of reviews posted that seem considerably less thought-out as you suggested, so I can't imagine how arbitrarily they go about choosing a rating. Perhaps some people are capable of nitpicking that much, but I'm not and don't really see a need to. But if I was, I'd definitely agree that almost no record, no matter how awesome, would get a 100% from me under that system. It's not like grading an exam, which is more objective and systematic. A 1-10 scale with the possible option of half-points seems sufficient for the purposes of creative art forms.

 

[ShredHeadJHJ]

If MA has Rush then they need to add Dillinger Escape Plan and Atreyu ASAP.

I'm not familiar with Atreyu, but I did not know DEP weren't on there... Fucking retarded. They're just not putting bands on there they don't like, but they'll put bedroom super underground bands on there with one demo & no pictures that only 7 guys in Norway have heard of.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that The Sound of Perseverance is Death's best album

it's my least favorite to be honest, i can't even force myself to like it and death is my favorite band

 

[Orion Crystal Ice]

I thought 'TSOP' was definitely *a* peak if not the peak. Now the Control Denied album, I think, is really weak.......it very much struck me as all good ideas having been used in the Death album.

 

[ShredHeadJHJ]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that The Sound of Perseverance is Death's best album

lawlz how you always turn random threads into Death arguments. I probably like TSoP least of Death's works ahead of possibly Symbolic, but it's still a decent album. Actually the only one of Death's albums I don't feel that comfortable commenting on is Spiritual Healing because I never was able to get into that one, but I'm sure that's just the draw of things.

You know what I think the problem is? The entire 0-100% rating system. That means there are 100 different possible ratings you can give any given album (or 101 if you count 0). How is that supposed to work? "Well, this record would get an 85%, but that I didn't like that trill in the solo on track 4 at 3:36, so I gave it an 84%." IMO, the more ratings you have to choose from, the more thorough and in-depth your analysis must be to effectively decide on a final score. Not that there's anything wrong with that principle in general, but in this case it seems excessive for the purposes of an album review.

In the few cases where I've reviewed there, I could only ballpark my rating to within 10 points and basically picked a random number in that range as my final choice. There are plenty of reviews posted that seem considerably less thought-out as you suggested, so I can't imagine how arbitrarily they go about choosing a rating. Perhaps some people are capable of nitpicking that much, but I'm not and don't really see a need to. But if I was, I'd definitely agree that almost no record, no matter how awesome, would get a 100% from me under that system. It's not like grading an exam, which is more objective and systematic. A 1-10 scale with the possible option of half-points seems sufficient for the purposes of creative art forms.

There is no better rating system than 100. You can add or deduct points to get things as close as possible to how you feel about the album, then everyone's scores can be averaged to get an even closer outlook from many about their overall feelings about an album.

Here is a perfect example, & something I do when thinking up a review for album

"Well, this record would get an 85%, but that I didn't like that trill in the solo on track 4 at 3:36, so I gave it an 84%."

I did write a few reviews for M-A, but I deleted them when I was banned for calling some dumb shit an elitist.

The problem lies with the people who review albums. Even if a 100% rating is justifiable so many times I hear people saying more negative than positive things about albums they rate 100%. Also, how on earth could anyone ever say something positive about something they just rated a 0%???

 

[CF87]

Spiritual Healing and Human are much better(actually any Death is). TSOP kinda sucks and the vocals are annoying.

 

[The Ozzman]

Human is crap (still). Maybe it will click one day

 

[Orion Crystal Ice]

'Human' is really good but I think the production is atrocious, probably the worst out of any Death album.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

Human is the best death album

 

[ShredHeadJHJ]

I like ITP best... Leprosy & SBG second... After than Human.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

Human is my favorite, then ITP, leprosy, spiritual healing, symbolic are tied, then SBG, then TSOP

 

[The Butt]

I thought Human was okay. Symbolic is by far the best Death I've heard though (counting Human and TSOP). Excellent album from start to fucking finish.

 

[whiskey funeral]

Spiritual Healing and Human are much better(actually any Death is). TSOP kinda sucks and the vocals are annoying.

The vocals on TSOP pretty much ruin the whole thing for me.

 

[Mort Divine]

the bass on TSOP annoys the shit out of me

 

[The Ozzman]

the bass on TSOP annoys the shit out of me

The bass on the album is awesome

 

[Mort Divine]

Technically, but it sounds like ass and has been known to give me a headache.

 

[Jreg]

There is no better rating system than 100. You can add or deduct points to get things as close as possible to how you feel about the album, then everyone's scores can be averaged to get an even closer outlook from many about their overall feelings about an album.

I did write a few reviews for M-A, but I deleted them when I was banned for calling some dumb shit an elitist.

The problem lies with the people who review albums. Even if a 100% rating is justifiable so many times I hear people saying more negative than positive things about albums they rate 100%. Also, how on earth could anyone ever say something positive about something they just rated a 0%???

Well yeah, I think it's mostly an issue of being better in theory than it is in practice. If you actually dissect the music that much, then that's fine since you're getting the most mileage out of the tools you're given. But it's obvious that not every person works that way, and so we're left with a bunch of scores than don't reflect the reviewer's opinions as accurately as they could. Like I said, I don't really believe that much analysis is necessary for the purposes of a review (if for no other reason than because it seems it like would make for some extremely dry and tedious writing), but when given that much freedom, people could at least make some kind of effort to utilize it.

That issue with the 100%/0% ratings is definitely another problem though. The fact that many of those type of scores aren't reflected in the actual review highlights an inherent flaw or bias in what actually gets posted on the site. I've submitted a few reviews that were rejected because they thought my ratings were too high/low given the actual critiques, yet they wave in lots of stuff like that as if it's any better. If they wanna second-guess what I send in then fine, but it's amusing to see them accept other submissions with the exact same problems. I won't fault them too much since the sheer volume of data they have to juggle is probably overwhelming at times, but ideally it would seem reasonable to scrutinize those extreme scores a little more.

 

[Vossyrus]

I like the 100-point scale best because you can approach it in whichever way you want. Like you can rate albums done to the exact number rating you feel works best, or still award ratings counting by five (100, 95, 90...) or ten (100, 90, 80...) etc. It's better than on some sites like Rateyourmusic where you're restricted to a very vague and general five-star rating.

The only issue I think if you're going to rate albums with 101 ratings to choose from would be consistency. Perhaps you'll rate an album 79, but the next time you listen to it will be 80 or an 81...

I've written some reviews before and the way I rate albums, the rating reflects how I feel about the album, overall. I don't take away a certain percentage if I don't like something like a guitar solo in a song (I think this method is far too inconsistent). I also don't rate each track, and then average them out to a percentage.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

Here's a somewhat controversial thing to say... when it comes to non-metal influences, a lot of things seem to get misnamed. Like when bands get called hardcore or metalcore without them actually having any aspects of punk in their music. And like how Damnation is said to be a 70s-style prog rock record. It's far too laidback for that. It sounds more like Alice In Chains' acoustic material and Nick Drake and it has pretty much no segments resembling Yes, Floyd, Rush or Tull. I also think bands are too often labeled based on their influences rather than what they actually sound like. If Darkthrone inspires someone to play country, is that more metal than if Eminem inspires somebody to play death metal?

 

[S<issors]

The vocals on TSOP pretty much ruin the whole thing for me.

yeah I can see what he's going for but it doesn't sound good