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Rating, Ranking, and Favoritism


Entre_Perpetuo
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So I feel like a lot of us here feel passionately enough about music that we have some kind of ranking system or rating system to help us quantify our emotions towards specific songs, albums, and the like. But I imagine the degree to which this is done and the methodology differs for each of us. So here's a thread to explain why you do or don't rank things, rate things, and/or pick favorites, how you do or don't, and what your thoughts are or aren't on the subject of rating, ranking, and favoritism.

 

Have at it! :)

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I know some people say oh i can't possibly rank my fav bands.......i can. cause my brain does it automatically. i don't even realize i've done it till i'm ASKED to rank something, lpl

 

i guess my head likes my music in order, lol

 

Mick

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I think some people just naturally like to make lists and put everything in its own little category and box. I think it's a form of OCD.
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I think some people just naturally like to make lists and put everything in its own little category and box. I think it's a form of OCD.

 

I think someone with actual OCD might be offended if I told them I thought I had some form of OCD cuz I like to categorize and favoritise my music.

Edited by Entre_Perpetuo
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I've always enjoyed lists, rankings, polls, etc. For me it's making something I'm into more personal and my own. These are "my" favorite (songs, albums...whatever)...they mean this much to me. Not obsessive at all. I just like to compare, discuss, ponder.

 

I think it's a cross over from my enjoyment of fantasy sports. I like to compare stats, make draft lists, analyze things.

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I think some people just naturally like to make lists and put everything in its own little category and box. I think it's a form of OCD.

 

I think someone with actual OCD might be offended if I told them I thought I had some form of OCD cuz I like to categorize and favoritise my music.

 

I have OCD and am not offended. I actually think to a degree she might be correct!

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I think some people just naturally like to make lists and put everything in its own little category and box. I think it's a form of OCD.

 

I think someone with actual OCD might be offended if I told them I thought I had some form of OCD cuz I like to categorize and favoritise my music.

 

I have OCD and am not offended. I actually think to a degree she might be correct!

 

Yeah I can't quite imagine anybody would really care. My nephew had it and he was always categorizing things.

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I think some people just naturally like to make lists and put everything in its own little category and box. I think it's a form of OCD.

 

I think someone with actual OCD might be offended if I told them I thought I had some form of OCD cuz I like to categorize and favoritise my music.

On a scale of 1-10, how offended?
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I think some people just naturally like to make lists and put everything in its own little category and box. I think it's a form of OCD.

 

I think someone with actual OCD might be offended if I told them I thought I had some form of OCD cuz I like to categorize and favoritise my music.

On a scale of 1-10, how offended?

 

-10.

 

 

 

Oh wait. I get it. Not -10, 1thru10. Clear as glass ty.

Edited by Digital Dad
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I've always enjoyed lists, rankings, polls, etc. For me it's making something I'm into more personal and my own. These are "my" favorite (songs, albums...whatever)...they mean this much to me. Not obsessive at all. I just like to compare, discuss, ponder.

 

I think it's a cross over from my enjoyment of fantasy sports. I like to compare stats, make draft lists, analyze things.

I enjoy weighing the difference between "favorite" and "best". I know that some of my favorite music (DEVO, X, April Wine) isn't the "best" music, but somehow I'm moved by it more than other bands.
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I've always enjoyed lists, rankings, polls, etc. For me it's making something I'm into more personal and my own. These are "my" favorite (songs, albums...whatever)...they mean this much to me. Not obsessive at all. I just like to compare, discuss, ponder.

 

I think it's a cross over from my enjoyment of fantasy sports. I like to compare stats, make draft lists, analyze things.

I enjoy weighing the difference between "favorite" and "best". I know that some of my favorite music (DEVO, X, April Wine) isn't the "best" music, but somehow I'm moved by it more than other bands.

 

Yeah cuz those bands suck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I keed

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I think some people just naturally like to make lists and put everything in its own little category and box. I think it's a form of OCD.

 

I think someone with actual OCD might be offended if I told them I thought I had some form of OCD cuz I like to categorize and favoritise my music.

 

I have OCD and am not offended. I actually think to a degree she might be correct!

 

 

Fair enough, perhaps I'm just being too cautious. I've heard stories of people with OCD being offended by others using the term where is doesn't apply before.

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I think some people just naturally like to make lists and put everything in its own little category and box. I think it's a form of OCD.

 

I think someone with actual OCD might be offended if I told them I thought I had some form of OCD cuz I like to categorize and favoritise my music.

On a scale of 1-10, how offended?

 

Anywhere between 389 and -45790...give or take a decimal point.

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I've always enjoyed lists, rankings, polls, etc. For me it's making something I'm into more personal and my own. These are "my" favorite (songs, albums...whatever)...they mean this much to me. Not obsessive at all. I just like to compare, discuss, ponder.

 

I think it's a cross over from my enjoyment of fantasy sports. I like to compare stats, make draft lists, analyze things.

I enjoy weighing the difference between "favorite" and "best". I know that some of my favorite music (DEVO, X, April Wine) isn't the "best" music, but somehow I'm moved by it more than other bands.

 

I think it's a pretty interesting and common scenario among music lovers to differentiate between favorite and best as such. I run into this in my own experience with Rush. Officially speaking, my favorite Rush song is Cygnus X-1 Book I, unquestionably...but if you ask me what their best song is I am so much more inclined to say 2112. I decide that Cygnus actually means more to me or is more optimal for me to identify with, but I cede that 2112 is quite probably the better song by my own standards. Paradox?

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I don't rate the bands I listen to.

 

Not out of some pretentious 'all music is good' nonsense. I definitely love some and loathe some.

It's more that I like a very broad range of genre, and I get stuck in modes all the time.

 

So while I'm listening to nothing but Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, or Bad Brains then suddenly all the good early hardcore moves up in the ratings. And if I'm on a hip hop kick then suddenly the Coup or Sage Francis elevate all the good artists a bit.

 

So my top twenty bands shift all the time. I have a few that always are there (unsurprisingly Rush is one) but depending on who I'm stuck on the overall picture changes.

 

I don't change whether I like something or not, but the degree to which I like a band will change.

 

I imagine most of us are a bit like that. You find yourself running through the discography of some artist you like and for a little while they're in your top ten, until you go through someone else's catalog.

 

I love the polls this group puts out, but my responses to those polls are always somewhat unreliable. Today's five star is tomorrow's four star, and vice versa.

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I used to use 10-point scale ratings (and even hexadecimal when Lenny was around, that was a fun phase) but now I swear by the 5 star system, which is conveniently ingrained in windows properties for audio filetypes ;)

 

I don't care to cross-rank bands and their efforts, but in the event that I do that I need to be sure that there will be no discrepancies... Discrepancies happened when I rated out of 10.

I might have rated a song by 'Band A' 8/10 while I rated a song by 'Band B' 7/10 - but in actuality find that I like Band B's song better. This occurs due to change of opinion over time as well as feelings at the time of rating and reviewing (past and present), and there's nothing I can really do to take that out of the rating process. However, I can remedy this problem by simplifying the rating scale, making it more dependable.

Another problem I've noticed with ranking songs based on previous ratings I've set is that I notice I'll be more or less generous to a certain song's rating relative to its respective album's overall quality. That hasn't happened with the 5 star rating, but it happened with the 10 point often. Band A's song is now 4/5 instead of 8/10, and Band B's is 4/5 instead of 7/10. Problem solved.

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Never felt the need to categorise music beyond good. mediocre/shit etc .....it all depends on how a particular song resonates emotionally with me at the time.

 

Of course I have favourite bands and albums, but I don't have a fondness for lists or categories etc. It's one of the reasons why I can't stand the endless creation of meaningless sub-genres in music

Edited by Fridge
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I used to use 10-point scale ratings (and even hexadecimal when Lenny was around, that was a fun phase) but now I swear by the 5 star system, which is conveniently ingrained in windows properties for audio filetypes ;)

 

I don't care to cross-rank bands and their efforts, but in the event that I do that I need to be sure that there will be no discrepancies... Discrepancies happened when I rated out of 10.

I might have rated a song by 'Band A' 8/10 while I rated a song by 'Band B' 7/10 - but in actuality find that I like Band B's song better. This occurs due to change of opinion over time as well as feelings at the time of rating and reviewing (past and present), and there's nothing I can really do to take that out of the rating process. However, I can remedy this problem by simplifying the rating scale, making it more dependable.

Another problem I've noticed with ranking songs based on previous ratings I've set is that I notice I'll be more or less generous to a certain song's rating relative to its respective album's overall quality. That hasn't happened with the 5 star rating, but it happened with the 10 point often. Band A's song is now 4/5 instead of 8/10, and Band B's is 4/5 instead of 7/10. Problem solved.

 

I usually only try doing ten point or star ratings of things when I'm ranking albums or songs against each other and having a hard time deciding. However, I also discovered this isn't always as reflective of my opinion towards an album as I think it will be, because there's no reason for News Of The World not to be my favorite Queen album by the systems I used, yet I know I could never rank it ahead of A Night At The Opera.

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Small minds think only in numbers.

 

Using a "rank each song" system completely removes the emotional impact an album may have when taken as a whole It's why Albums are still the greatest medium for music in my opinion.

 

Someone who still uses a rank each song system and still feels huge emotional impact from listening to full albums might disagree with you there.

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