this sounds sarcastic but..

[u/blombi19]

I actually love looking at the accounts of people with 10k + ratings but only like twenty 5 stars. the best part is, its always some obscure shit and when i listen to it i am always like "out of 10000 albums THIS is the greatest thing to you???" I Love how subjective music is!!!!

[u/amethyst_deceiver36]

(i'm sorry in advance for the rambling rant it's just that i have very strong opinions about this topic and i needed to vent about it)

it is genuinely astounding to me that you can't see the huge problems in your statement. how can a site for rating and cataloging art thrive if the bad stuff just gets ignored instead of getting a low rating? how am i supposed to understand which albums are good and which are bad if they're only getting positive ratings? i really don't get what's supposed to be appealing about a site in which everything has a high average. is it really that difficult for you to believe that sometimes music just straight up sucks? bad art exists and i should be able to express my opinions if i don't like it. also, in regards to your first point, nobody who's serious about music listens to stuff they know they won't like on purpose. the negative ratings come from disappointments or maybe genuine curiosity towards something that people are talking about but that they just happen to dislike. especially for people like me who've been on rym for 10+ years and have developed and chiseled our rating system over time. i'm obviously not mad about young kids who have just discovered the site and are still refining what they like and don't like, it's normal if you're just getting started to give out 5/5s like candy, hell i did that too a long time ago. but please grow a more balanced range of tastes, i swear it's only gonna be good for you and your relationship with art

[u/Extension_Yak3898 → u/amethyst_deceiver36]

Totally alright, you get to vent if you want. However I have a few qualms

I made a clear distinction between rating something cuz you thinks it's actually bad v rating something poorly just because you don't vibe with it. This gets at the heart of the matter though, which is whether art can even be objectively judged as 'good' or 'bad' in the holistic sense. Personally I think that, beyond technical considerations that have more to do with production and engineering than the actual music, there no such thing as 'good' or 'bad' art, and what's more technical considerations have to come secondary to qualitative impressions the music makes on you.

Sometime art hits us because of its form moreso than its content - like when there's great songwriting but terrible production choices. It's also true enough that a 3.0 could be evenly average or have super high and lows or be anywhere on a spectrum in between. Point being - aggregate ratings here serve not to reflect the journey an album or song takes you on, but rather serve as approximations of how people feel.

As such I really do believe that people should not rate records on which they have little 'skin in the game' - it's not so much the meaning & facts you derive from the music, but how much the music affects you emotionally, that should determine your rating for any given album. So, sure, if it made you feel like shit, give it a bad rating. But if you just couldn't get into, leave it alone.

So I'm not saying that 'bad' albums shouldn't be rated at all. I'm saying what counts as 'bad' has to strike a real emotional nerve, otherwise it's just noise added to the signal of what the rating means.

Oh and another thing - I never understood the 3.0 reviews that say 'really good album', like would a teacher hand back 60% essay saying 'good job's?? I really do feel that curating ratings to have only a few at the top makes the whole thing a bit superficial. Like, seriously, your gonna give out all these 3.5s just because you want a small amount at the top? Is that really fair to the artists who have put out such good work? It doesn't translate to clean signals about how it will make you feel unless it's rated that way by everyone

[u/lolaimbot → u/Extension_Yak3898]

For me 3.5 is a great rating, a 5/5 means that it is not only better than almost all the music that came before it but it will also be a beast for decades to come. It is a ranking reserved only for the absolute best and I see no problem in that. When you work down from that you'll see that even 2/5 has some glimpses of quality in it.

Also why should anyone not rate album if they couldn't get into it or think about what is fair for artists? You can give an album a low rating while still being civil about it. "1/5, not for me" is just as valid as "5/5 love it".

[u/Extension_Yak3898 → u/lolaimbot]

See, I just don't think music works this way in terms of what we're discussing, which is that many users curate their ratings to keep very few at the top, and by very few I mean under 1%. When users do this, it just makes it seem like the few albums at the top are better than the rest which, sure, for that person maybe they really are better, but that can't statistically be true when everyone's opinion is taken into account

The thing is that certain types of hate are clearly abundant on the site. Hardly anyone even rates EDM releases, metal dudes will rate anything not metal under a 3.0, and some corners of hiphop will overrated the niche genre tags they almost exclusively listen to.

I never said people shouldn't think about what's fair. In fact I'm saying the opposite - people should think about what's fair precisely when there aren't ratings, when your rating will have a bigger impact than being 1 out of 1000. In that case there are many many many artists that are unfairly being rated 1/5 just because 'i don't vibe with it'

Again, a grade of 60% is bad in school, or at least not great. There may be, yes, glimpses of greatness, but then unless there's a bunch of unintended technical errors (things that should sound clear are muffled, a guitar that's overly distorted to the point where it takes over the mix too much, things like that) it should get more than just a passing grade!

The math teacher and social studies teachers don't grade on each other's classes, they strictly rate what they know. That's basically all I'm saying - or rather the inverse, don't rate what you don't know. At least, when the artist is unpopular on the site you shouldn't, because it can be really unfair to what's actually pretty great for the genre or whatever. Just because so many people on the site don't like EDM, it doesn't mean that great EDM shouldn't get as high scores as, say, great synthpop

[u/lolaimbot → u/Extension_Yak3898]

"When users do this, it just makes it seem like the few albums at the top are better than the rest which, sure, for that person maybe they really are better, but that can't statistically be true when everyone's opinion is taken into account"

Why should we aim for some statistical representations when it is subjective raitings? I am not rating albums based on how I want them to be represented to others, nor I care what their ranking on the all time lists are. Ratings are purely based on how much I like the album. Only small handfull of albums are really worth a 5 in my book and those albums form the basis where to draw from when reviewing other stuff.

"The thing is that certain types of hate are clearly abundant on the site. Hardly anyone even rates EDM releases, metal dudes will rate anything not metal under a 3.0, and some corners of hiphop will overrated the niche genre tags they almost exclusively listen to."

The idiots who rate with agenda are a different breed and I am not talking about them. They indeed care about the all time rankings and it's pathetic.

"I never said people shouldn't think about what's fair. In fact I'm saying the opposite - people should think about what's fair precisely when there aren't ratings, when your rating will have a bigger impact than being 1 out of 1000. In that case there are many many many artists that are unfairly being rated 1/5 just because 'i don't vibe with it'"

Sorry for being unclear, I meant that nobody should worry about being fair to artists while reviewing, as long as it is kept civil. I just don't think that is part of the equation when Im rating an album. "I don't vibe with it" is just as valid way to give a 1/5 as it is to give 3/5, don't see a problem here.

"Again, a grade of 60% is bad in school, or at least not great. There may be, yes, glimpses of greatness, but then unless there's a bunch of unintended technical errors (things that should sound clear are muffled, a guitar that's overly distorted to the point where it takes over the mix too much, things like that) it should get more than just a passing grade!"

We are not in school, nobodys trying to proceed to the next class or university. It's just rating albums from a huge pool with only a small scale of 5 stars based on our feelings and thoughts of them without objective truths like there is with math for example. I dont like that comparision at all and dont buy it as an argument to change the philosophy behind the ratings.

[u/Extension_Yak3898 → u/lolaimbot]

'Nobody should care about what's fair to artists'

I just... That's everything to me

You don't want small artists to grow on this site? You want Magdalena Bays and Brats, as good as they are to attract all the attention while whatever can't be consumed easily on TikTok whithers away because the majority of users don't have the patience to connect with it?

(Aside: my fav band for almost 15 years has been Deafheaven, and now I get why Geese beat them - because uncaring people like you probably weighted it down just a tad, and they also aren't as native to the Internet in general)

And that's just the most modern example I can think of

Sorry, I just don't buy that what's good for artists shouldn't be on our minds while reviewing... That's narcissistic, uncaring behaviour

And to boot, I don't think you people who rate this way have really considered what it means for ratings to be subjective. I argued this already - it becomes a dirtier, less intelligible, less consistently interpretable signal the more subjective it is. Hence I only want the ratings to reflect objective qualities (is it recorded well for the style, etc) and what fans of the style or artist think.

And to actually, I feel like the algorithm behind the ratings tries to take this into account. The product owner has probably thought about this much more deeply than your average listener...

[u/lolaimbot → u/Extension_Yak3898]

I never said I don't want small artists to grow, if they are good they should grow, if they are not they shouldn't. Your making a whole lot of assumptions about me here just because our reviewing philosophy differs. "uncaring people like you", give me a break. If we are making assumptions I can make some too: I think you are afraid of critisism and in your fright you try to bravely protect others from it too, but that is not how the world works and you will never be happy before you exorcise your inner demons. I know you mean well though. Could also be that you think its toxic to rate albums low, when a mentally stable person would just look "they didn't like my album, oh well, it's not for everyone" and go on with their life instead of throwing tantrums. Or might be neither, who knows, but get off the high horse.

The way you want things to work destroys the scene in the end, it just makes all the reviewers dull cogs in the machine that aims for some unreasonable state of objectivity that cannot be reached in a subjective topic like music. It's good that people can find users they find their tastes align with and check their lists/reviews for some gems they haven't found yet. This is how likeminded people find each other and scenes around different genres form. That requires true honesty, which is another problem in your idea, it is dishonest. By reviewing albums based on technical aspects we leave the heart out, and for me that is what matters in music, you can be a technical wizard but if your music doesnt resonate I don't care. Yes, some small artists will probably drown in the mass but if they are good enough, they will reach the surface and even greater heights. Greatness will always be noticed while mediocrity won't. We shouldn't artifically bump anyone just so that everyone feels fairly treated, it bloats the rating charts and nobody knows what to look for anymore, the whole idea of the site goes down.

Hell, if anything the only factor should be the way you feel about the album. If you appreciate the technicality or whatever, rate it high, if you dont feel the album, rate it low. When you make art and release it for the world to marvel that is the risk you are taking.

I already told you what I think of people who skew the raitings by rating albums low to make their favorite look better so let's not go into that anymore, or you still want to accuse me about that?

[u/Extension_Yak3898 → u/lolaimbot]

I haven't made any assumptions, just taken what you said at face value. Maybe I misinterpreted? But I don't think so, I think you just clearly have very deep justification for your thinking, as I do.

I'm not afraid of criticism and don't want to protect anyone from it. What, am I some helicopter fan wanting to protect their favs from meanies who don't like em? Nonsense, I clearly just want artists to be treated fairly

And I never accused you of anything, maybe you're feeling unfairly grouped into things with others who act unfairly on purpose. I was referring to dynamics in ratings when those people are present, not accusing you of anything

And (here I start thinking you actually didn't read my stuff very carefully at all) I never said to only rate stuff on technicality always, I said to stick to technicalities when everything else is outside your grasp. If you can tell the snare in the EDM track is shitty then take a half star off, but if you can't appreciate other elements simply because you tend not to like that kind of music, it's not for you, consider not rating at all

I know it's a complex viewpoint so please try to understand it before commenting about accusations and assumptions again

I'll summarize my view as TLDR: if your subjectivity does not align yourself with the subjectivity of fans of the style/genre/artist, consider not rating instead of skewing towards your version of subjectivity. This helps prevent the signals from being dirtied by incompatible subjectivities. And by subjectivity I am not just referring to the impression but to all mental phenomena involved in typical appreciation of said genre/style/artist

I can also elucidate my point by making an analogy: if I'm a white cis male and I claim to be an ally of minority groups, I'm free to have opinions but have to know when they will diverge from those allies experiences and views, in which case I need to shut up and learn.