Yes, now that you mention it this is true given the possible ratings here. I'd still save the >=95% for some of the greatest achievements in the history of man/or absolute favourites (and 9 out of ten still extremely exclusive) (not saying this album isn't, I'm talking more about moderate enthusiasm followed by high ratings).

Like I said Starman is a great song. It is like a 14/10 which is being added to any two songs on the album that are 8/10 so all three songs together end up averaging out as 10/10. So the album as a whole is 10/10. It is about the Law of Averages.

That's my point though: a tendency to see 10 as the start of greatness rather than the 100% perfection that it implies: instead of say, 7.5 being the start of greatness. Again, though, I don't have a problem with people seeing it this way, it's just a bit new to me and I'm more curious than anything.

7.5 being the start of greatness? :confused: Getting a 75 on a test (which was getting 75% of the answers right) was not the starting point of greatness, not as a student it wasn't. That was the starting point of failure. Scoring 75 on a test was like telling you if you didn't do better you risk failing.

Oh! So, there are songs on there that are a million times better than some others,
so can I just raise my rating to, say, 831,739 - 'cause, you know, it's my
alternate innumerate reality that I'm going by and so should everyone else?

There's a difference between a test and a piece of music: if you get perfect marks for a test that simply means you got everything right that the test asks. In music the possibilities are nearly endless and a 10/10 would mean making the most of the possibilities of music in order to create something that nothing else could compete with as far as the stimulation it provides from start to finish. It would be like, an instantaneous orgasm from the first note that lasted until the end of the work without succumbing to any cramps or there being any end of it in sight.

Yeah. The reason Starman scored a 14/10 is cause I am factoring in an four extra credits cause the song is going beyond and above the call of duty. It goes beyond the regular "oh, it's a good song." They did every thing right so they gets a normal 10/10. But it has a certain je ne sais quoi. There is something more about it, something mythical, something magical, so the need for 4 extra credit points being added to its 10/10. It totally makes good sense to me.

There's no option for 9.6 anyways. If it's either 9 or 10, and you think it's closer to a 10, what rating are you gonna give?

Usually you round up 9.6 to 10.

I think you're over thinking a rating system. A 10/10 doesn't mean something is perfect. One of my all-time favorite albums, a 10/10, is Jalamanta by Brant Bjork. I wouldn't call it a perfect album though. The singing is too low in the mix, the drums can be too loud. But every time I hear the album it's still an amazing experience that I love. And anything less then a 10/10 feels wrong.

Ratings are not a measurement of perfection. You cannot measure perfection in art. You can only measure personal enjoyment.

I completely agree. I could further apply this to what I've been saying but I think it's gone too far already :P It's not a big deal.

You should watch this video. This guy gets into the rating system and its flaw. The same flaw this thread is guilty of.



Why spend so much time discussing a number rather then discussing the contents of the art. Why should I care about Anthony Fantano giving the album a 4. It's the more specific details he gives that I care about.

I'll watch it shortly, a bit busy atm.

I agree also regarding content vs rating. It's just that this is a rating thread being used to determine what is a classic or not.

You're missing the general idea of what's being tried to achieve and that's just conversation about music itself.

Right now we have the conversation away from Bowie and his 72 classic to the positives and negatives of a rating system. What's happening in the poll should be meaningless to a small extent.

Fair call: my apologies.

Why "4" and not 30 extra points? I mean, why not; since we're in meaningless meta-mathematical no man's land? The reason it doesn't work as if you're grading papers is because rating things based on taste, is, like I said earlier, usually linear. Going by your logarithmic way, it would mean that Frownland's score of 5 would mean that the album was worse than a failure (something that's as "meaningful" as 14 out of ten). Same thing if you apply it to any other product review - Yelp or otherwise. Rotten Tomatoes doesn't say, "The movie went 'beyond and above the call of duty," so I give it 140%" or a Yelp review of a restaurant that gives it a 3 star (meaning "good") would, in your system, be a complete failure at an equivalent 60%.

If we really are just wanting to talk about the music, then why even have the rating system? 'Cause that's what we do here - pit people and things against each other.

I'm rethinking my review. Since I think it's a cool record, I'll have to take the formula for the speed of sound thru ice and calculate each tune's placement within each calculated sound/time space and probably have to resort to Baire's Theorem to come up with a similar meta-math that gives an answer outside rational boundaries ... or, I'll just continue with the scale of "1" equaling "crap," "5" equaling "average," and "10" being nearly unobtainable perfection.

I'm not mad. I just didn't know whether I was welcome here. Believe me, you're really not worth it.

Anyway, yeah, I gave it a 10/10. I only rate Hunky Dory higher as far as Bowie albums go and the influence Ziggy Stardust had in rock n roll is pretty much insurmountable.

You absolutely are. One of the best new members imo.

Up to yourself, Blank, of course, but if you wanted you could replace the ratings with just results the way we do it in the album club: Loved it, Liked it, Hated it etc. Might make it easier for people to rate. Then the more Loved it you get the better the chance the album has of being a classic. Or not. Just a suggestion.

He also has a huge penis :love:

Thanks, Grindy.


lol

I mean, if you're here you're welcome here. If there was anything you could DO to be unwelcome here then like half our current members would be banned.

If there’s any problem, he doesn’t seem like much of an *******. Hard to trust.

@Blank

So much this.

Do me a favor and listen to a FLAC version of Ziggy through a good set of headphones. The production is ****ing amazing.

Ok. The problem I have with this is that a number of people, myself included, only listen to one maybe two new albums a day.

So if we do it this way, we're asking people to submit roughly 71% of their music listening for a week. And with things like the Album Club we essentially take over all of their music listening for every week. I think by taking so much of their music listening time, we inturn will cause higher rates of people dropping out of the classics thread. I think it's better to go in the current path then to make these threads have a longer overall Shelf life.

That said, I think this Bowie thread is long since over and time to move on. I think the majority of the votes were from past experiences and not recent listens (which is fine).

I can guarantee I'm gonna bail on this if we attempt a rate greater than 1 album/week. I don't have time for that ****.

You could make 5-6 album threads, and then give them all a closing date on the same day one month later. I don't know if this would be too unfocused, but it's an alternative and it wouldn't make it harder for people who can't/won't do more than 1 per week, since it would be about the same rate in total.

@system 1 per week works for me

@rating 6 for me is not bad but I'm still apathetic about it.
5 is not good but again, I'm apathetic.
7 is a good album with some critical flaws that bring it down.
4 is a bad album but it's got several major good qualities.
8 is a good album with a few minimal flaws that bring it down.
3 is a bad album that has a handful of good aspects.
9 is a great album that is nearly flawless, or whose great aspects really make up for its flaws.
2 is a terrible album which is almost perfect in its ineptitude.
10 is a 9 that gives me something awesome that I can't get anywhere else.
1 is a 2 that gives me something awful that I can't get anywhere else. (Brokencyde, Crazy Frog)

Thanks Troll. The problem I have with this is that I don't want to make this feel like a carbon copy of the album club. With each step forward I take the more it feels and seems that way.

In that case, what can we do to differentiate this project from the other?

why not place them on the list in order of their average rating

Another fine idea, but also kind of destroys the point of a cutoff for the "cream of the crop".

no because the only albums that make the list are the ones who are over an average of 7(?)

we're just sorting by which classic is more adored than the other. don't think there's an issue with separating something that's barely a 7 from something that's unanimously a 9.

Qwert's suggestion is the one I would've made.

The plan was to already do that Qwertyy. Since I only had one album so far I wasn't worried about it.

too late, im taking credit for the idea.

Fair enough m8, np.

10 - perfect
5 - average
0 - Beatloads

Obviously anything over or under 5 is above/below average.

Yeah tbh I agree with this.

I think I underrated it a bit because I've overplayed it then didn't listen to it for about four years and also cos it's frequently named as his best album when I don't think it is, it's a bit like naming Purple Rain as the best Prince album.

Anyway it deserves it's hype imo.