Ranking albums: the problem of enjoyment vs. appreciation

I'm trying to put together my best of 2019 list (like many others, I'm sure), and I wonder: does anyone else really struggle with balancing out pure enjoyment of an album with more objective quality/creativity?

Not to suggest that it's truly objective or anything, nor that an album can't have both, but there are albums I enjoy a lot even though I know they're not especially original or creative, and there are albums that impress me massively but I maybe don't get quite the same kick out of as some simpler ones.

This is not a problem for me as I allow myself to simply score releases on my own personal enjoyment alone. I mean what good is an artistically relevant & clever album that you don’t enjoy?

I've been learning to just embrace the bias most of the time. As long as you have an idea of what exactly your bias is, you can make educated decisions on what you think is better than what. It's cool seeing wildly different lists depending on the person, especially when they can explain their biases well.

Sometimes I'll leave an album at a lower score because I think I'll overrate it compared to other releases, example being this year's Gloryhammer, but that happens very rarely. 

Yeah, good points, and I need to get more into that mindset and less obsessive about it probably 

I think that ultimately you have to decide what works best for you. If you start rating albums on perceived merits or flaws rather than what you really enjoy (or dislike) about them then you run the risk of rating to conform with other's opinions. Sometimes music just makes you feel something special and that's what you need to hold on to, regardless of it's supposed "worthiness". Let's face it, most music snobs already look down on Metal as it is, so fuck  'em and if you love it, rate it up! All opinions are valid.

I definitely have this problem. I typically review or at least listen to an album and form my own opinion on the album before I go out and see what other people think of, however what your asking is whether personal enjoyment or objective quality/creativity make a difference in a review. For me it totally effects a review score, though not in my personal rankings in a year end list. A record that is typically in the mediocre range (1.5 - 3.5 out of 5 or 4 - 8 out of 10) are the worst offenders for me to get a rating that is more biased towards outside sources and/or the overall production and creativity of the album because these are the records that tend to be so in the middle of the road for me that are just 'meh' albums I'm not sure if I like them or not. If I go into an album that I straight up fall in love with and put on repeat I don't care how bad the production is or anything, same with I can't finish an album. 

There is definitely something to the production, creativity, technique that affect my scores but it typically really shows through in the overall enjoyment. 

Nope, Pure enjoyment for me.

I used to be somewhat conscious of the general rating, and what happened was I would get to albums with a low rating by the populace (Like modern In Flames) and then I would go into the album looking for flaws and trying to understand the low rating rather than just enjoying it. These days, I always try to listen to albums blind. I never read reviews or check ratings before listening, and I never change my opinions due to conformity. I allow myself to love what I love and hate what I hate, and it's much more fun that way. Objectivity has no place in a personal rating in my opinion.

I think having a well defined scoring system is essential for standardizing your scoring across a large quantity & cross-section of releases. I've been using the same one for many years now & it's served me well. People will have different ideas on what constitutes a good or a bad score (for me a 3.5/5 is the first score to constitute a good result with a 3/5 having just missed the cut ) but the important thing is to keep it standard & to have a defined concept for what every score in the spectrum means so that you can be sure that you're allocating the appropriate one on every occasion.

It's also extremely important to give releases multiple listens before rating them. I find that the first listen rarely gives me a good understanding of an album as I often need to have my internal biases reset so I just let it sweep over me without thinking too much about it. It means that I'll go into subsequent listens with an understanding of what to expect. The second listen is where informed opinions start to form but the third listen will see those becoming clearer. If a release requires more than three listens I can usually tell pretty obviously by how far my initial scoring is changing between the second & third listens. If there's been a noticeable change in my feelings then I'll likely give a release some more time to see if those feelings will grow further.

It's always taken me longer than Daniel to feel confident that my assessment of an album isn't going to change (in one direction or the other). I generally give each album 4 or 5 listens before settling on my rating. I've found that there are times when a release can suddenly click with me around that fourth listen, and I'd hate to judge an album before I've given it every opportunity to do so.

I'm definitely guilty of the "rate after one listen" mentality, but I always listen twice or more if I'm writing a review or giving an opinion past "I gave it this score". There's so many new albums always coming out that I wouldn't be able to keep up if I give every single release 3+ listens, especially for the ones that I know that I won't like to begin with.

My 4 ratings tend to change the most, either dropping to a 3.5 or moving up to a 4.5.

Really interesting to read other people's methods on this.

I think having a well defined scoring system is essential for standardizing your scoring across a large quantity & cross-section of releases. I've been using the same one for many years now & it's served me well. People will have different ideas on what constitutes a good or a bad score (for me a 3.5/5 is the first score to constitute a good result with a 3/5 having just missed the cut ) but the important thing is to keep it standard & to have a defined concept for what every score in the spectrum means so that you can be sure that you're allocating the appropriate one on every occasion.

I'm the same, I keep a list of short summaries of what each score means to me, and when I'm in doubt I read them and ask myself, "Which description fits this release?". I also have the same sort of feeling on the scores themselves: for me, 3.5 is good albeit with some issues, 3 is not really a bad album but not a good one either. For me, that's also my purchase threshold: assuming I've haven't bought it already, a 3/5 is one I'll usually pass on, but a 3.5/5 or more I will usually want to add to my physical collection.

I used to be more strict about many listens before scoring. Most of the time I still will listen a bunch of times, but I am okay with rating after an initial listen since I can always change the score as my opinion changes. That's still rare for me though, unless it's something I absolutely hate and don't want to go back to.

I agree with Daniel that your scoring system needs to be consistent and like most of you, for me a 3.5 is really a minimum for an album to be on my radar beyond the first couple of listens. A 3 isn't a stinker, but it's not that good either. I also like to feel my rating system is absolute, in that it holds for all genres of music, so a rating of 0.5 is for absolute shit that I really can't stand, probably the likes of Justin Bieber, Crazy Frog or some other crime against music. A 0.5 or 1.0 is only meted out to metal albums on extremely rare occasions ( Adema and Atreyu are the only metal bands that I've ever given 0.5s to). I do try to listen to a lot of new releases and for most I prefer at least a couple of listens before forming a judgement, although I refuse to suffer again through albums I'm fairly sure after a single listen I'm not interested in. I also like to return to albums and reassess them at a later time, as sometimes they can sound better or worse when approached with fresh ears (and possibly a different mental attitude). In truth, the ratings we give albums is probably always going to be fluid as our tastes and attitudes change and as we are exposed to new music. I'm 57 years old now and there's no way my view of certain albums is the same as it was forty years ago when I was a 17 year old kid! If you remember that your ratings need never be set in stone and, in fact, it's a good thing if they change, then there's no need to sweat it too much.

I also like to feel my rating system is absolute, in that it holds for all genres of music, so a rating of 0.5 is for absolute shit that I really can't stand, probably the likes of Justin Bieber, Crazy Frog or some other crime against music. A 0.5 or 1.0 is only meted out to metal albums on extremely rare occasions ( Adema and Atreyu are the only metal bands that I've ever given 0.5s to).

My feelings exactly. I remember having a debate with a couple of mates about the fact that my scoring tends to be in a bell curve with 3.5/5 at the centre. One believed that 2.5/5 should be the centre of the bell & the other thought that my rating distribution should be equal across the various possibilities. My argument was pretty simple really. I know what I'm likely to enjoy after all these years so I expect that I won't be selecting too many releases that I'm gonna hate. In reality I expect to enjoy the stuff I listen to more often than not & that naturally leads to an average of around 3.5/5.

Also, I reserve the bottom four ratings for stuff that I a) consider to be pretty awful or b) genuinely hate. So I don't dish them out to many metal releases in my chosen subgenres. I don't think I should have anywhere near as many 5/5 or 0.5/5 scores as I do 3/5 or 3.5/5 scores. There's got to be more average releases than classics in my opinion as I think it's got to be hard to score the extremes at either end of the spectrum. Otherwise you have no way of differentiating between the absolute elite like "Reign In Blood" or "Master Of Puppets" & other high quality releases. And 0.5-1/5 only goes to stuff where I consider the musicians can't play their instruments or where the sound coming out of the speakers doesn't even qualify as music at all & how many of those releases am I gonna actively seek out to listen to? Very few it would seem.

Of course, everyone is free to have their own thoughts on this & employ their own scoring system on Metal Academy as we promote equal opportunity so don't worry if yours doesn't line up with mine or anyone elses.

I also like to feel my rating system is absolute, in that it holds for all genres of music, so a rating of 0.5 is for absolute shit that I really can't stand, probably the likes of Justin Bieber, Crazy Frog or some other crime against music. A 0.5 or 1.0 is only meted out to metal albums on extremely rare occasions ( Adema and Atreyu are the only metal bands that I've ever given 0.5s to).

My feelings exactly. I remember having a debate with a couple of mates about the fact that my scoring tends to be in a bell curve with 3.5/5 at the centre. One believed that 2.5/5 should be the centre of the bell & the other thought that my rating distribution should be equal across the various possibilities. My argument was pretty simple really. I know what I'm likely to enjoy after all these years so I expect that I won't be selecting too many releases that I'm gonna hate. In reality I expect to enjoy the stuff I listen to more often than not & that naturally leads to an average of around 3.5/5.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. After all, most of us are usually listening to things we think we'll enjoy. Occasionally something will be a letdown, or we might be trying something different on a whim or because it got a lot of attention elsewhere, or we might be reviewing something for a publication, but or the most part I don't listen to stuff without expecting to at least somewhat enjoy it.

Looking at it, my most common rating is 4 (though 3.5 is close behind) so I guess I lean on the generous side :p