5 Star Ratings
May 18, 2008 Media, Technology 3 Comments
As a part-time Mobile DJ, tagging and organising my music library is very important to me. I’ve previously spent hours changing incorrect track information and I currently have around 12,000 songs in my iTunes library. Playlists are essential to manage all the songs and I rely on Smart Playlists to filter genre, new songs, decades, etc. In the same way, giving a rating to each song is also vital so I can easily filter your Arcade Fire from your Aqua.
Now I realise that rating anything is a subjective experience based on the taste of the reviewer so not everyone will agree with my decisions. A good example is the website metacritic.com where they give music, movies and games an average rating out of 100 based on cumulative reviews from known publications. However, I recently realised that even the seemingly simple 5 star rating has hidden depth that can be used in a variety of ways to produce very different results.
For example, some people might only have music in their library that they enjoy or appreciate (probably a lot of people). Therefore 1 star could represent a casual liking of a song, while a 5 star equates to a passionate auditory experience which few songs ever attain. This approach would be similar to the four star rating in Halliwell’s Film Guide, helpfully explained by Chewing Pixels:
all films by default receive a zero star rating. Only exceptionally interesting and important films manage to receive a one or two star rating with a tiny handful (just over 1%) of the 23, 000 odd films covered receiving the maximum recommendation of Four Stars.
For me however, a song in my library always starts as a 3 star by default. This is the middle ground and a safe arena which the majority of tracks fall into; not great but not terrible, just OK. Anything below par becomes a 2 star or, if woefully inadequate and pathetic, a 1 star. In contrast, anything that rises above the norm and stands out becomes a 4 star, with particularly inspired compositions receiving the full 5 stars. Any track that has no stars is classified as not yet rated.
I currently have 408 5 star rated tracks. A random selection includes:
- Arcade Fire - Windowsill
- Daft Punk - One More Time
- Lupe Fiasco - Daydreamin’
- Gorillaz - Dare
- Bloc Party - The Prayer
So how do you rate your music and what’s in your 5 stars?
